


You Know, I Only Wanted Fun

by earlgreytea68



Category: Fall Out Boy
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-11
Updated: 2019-11-16
Packaged: 2020-06-26 05:45:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 38
Words: 61,960
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19761799
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/earlgreytea68/pseuds/earlgreytea68
Summary: It's a Hogwarts AU.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I have always wanted to write a Hogwarts AU, so I'm really excited about this one!
> 
> I could not, though, imagine Britpicking Pete and Patrick. I tried to have Pete talk about his mum and it just felt so weird. So, they talk like Americans. Americans in Hogwarts. 
> 
> Thank you to Aja for being my Harry Potter expert whenever I had a question. 
> 
> Title from [Where Did the Party Go](https://youtu.be/Y_r8qZWkLp8?t=93).

Pete Wentz was supposed to be a Gryffindor.

The Wentz family was an entire family of Gryffindors. His grandfather was a judge on the Wizengamot. His mom was on the Council of Magical Law. They were both Gryffindor stars in their day, proudly held up as notable house alumni. Head Boy and Girl, the whole shebang.

His dad was also a Gryffindor, although his dad didn’t come from a wizarding family, and so his Gryffindor lineage started with him. But he was also a Gryffindor star in his day, Head Boy, and he went on to help out with Hogwarts admissions, mostly smoothing the way for the Muggle-family kids who showed up completely wide-eyed and didn’t even know how to get onto the platform properly. Pete was raised on stories about the kids who thought that magic was fake, whose parents had to do all the cooking and cleaning by hand, who had no idea how to use Floo powder or a portkey and had to travel using mysterious things like “cars.” _Imagine_ , Pete used to think. _Imagine going to Hogwarts and not knowing what house you were going to be in. Imagine that_.

And then Pete Wentz went to Hogwarts and the Sorting Hat whispered in his ear, “Slytherin.”

And Pete panicked – _wait, hold on, what?_ – but too late, the Sorting Hat had already shouted “Slytherin!” and Pete, the last one Sorted that night, slunk over to his new table to a stunned silence and then a smattering of applause from a house that wasn’t sure what to do with him.

And that was how his career at Hogwarts started.

His parents despaired, openly. They worried he was “falling in with the wrong crowd.” They sent him endless owls fretting at him. They seemed to think he’d _asked_ to be put into Slytherin, had rebelled against Gryffindor, had denounced virtues to embrace vice. He tried to explain he was as bewildered as the rest of them, tried to explain that he didn’t know where he’d gone wrong, that the Sorting Hat hadn’t given him any clue. He tried to explain how lost and alone he felt, in this house he wasn’t supposed to be in and didn’t understand, at this school where he was an in-between kid with no one who really wanted to claim him. His parents didn’t get it, continued to insist he’d brought it on himself, kept giving him lectures about “turning away from this path.” Pete begged to be transferred, to any other school, anywhere, a Muggle school even. When he had set off on the Hogwarts train at eleven years old, he had felt impossibly wise and ancient, like the entire world was spread out before him, his for the taking, and when he came home on that train, his twelfth birthday looming, he felt younger than he ever had in his life, small and insignificant, and he curled up in a ball in his room and tried to get his parents to understand that it _wasn’t his fault_ and he _didn’t want to be this way_ and _couldn’t they just let him drop out of school_.

His parents didn’t let him drop out of school. His parents sent him to a summer camp for “troubled children.” Most of these children were the sort who had no problem using Unforgivable Curses and breaking all sorts of other wizarding laws. Pete, small for his age and with his most furtive hobby being black market Muggle record albums, pleaded with his parents to let him come home and cried himself to sleep every night. He learned that summer how to say the words that people wanted to hear, how to stop fighting other people’s narrative about him, how to pretend to be as awful as people thought he was, and how to enchant a notebook to hide every true emotion he had, buried behind the swagger and sneer of the Slytherin they all expected to see.

Pete Wentz at the age of twelve went back to Hogwarts done with the scared and confused little boy he’d been. That Pete belonged to a different era. This Pete was going to fucking own the school. This Pete _grew the fuck up_. He was a constant menace to his parents, always close to failing out of the school entirely, which made him the most popular boy in his house, frankly. He was a genius when it came to the sort of wild schemes that made school _fun_ : sneaking out to Hogsmeade, parties in the Forbidden Forest, stealing the most fun potions from the teachers’ stores. The teachers kept insisting he was a talented wizard, if he’d just _apply_ himself. Pete shrugged, and applied himself to strategic mischief…and Quidditch. He’d always been a top-notch Quidditch player, and he turned himself into a star Chaser, and his dad said with a sigh, _Well, maybe you’ll just play professional Quidditch and won’t need any O.W.L.s_ , which sounded good to Pete.

His brother and sister came to Hogwarts and sorted into Gryffindor, as expected, and made perfect grades and stayed on target for their perfect expected lives. Pete dragged himself out of bed every morning to be the life of every party come nightfall, the Slytherin poster child of the current Hogwarts era, and in his bed in the Slytherin Dungeon after everyone else was sound asleep and couldn’t mock him for it he stayed up late devouring Muggle poetry and scrawling his own into his beloved notebook that he was never without.

And this was how Pete Wentz survived.


	2. Chapter 2

Patrick Stump got a letter the summer he was eleven that claimed he was a wizard.

Patrick read it five times, his face creased with puzzlement, before bringing it to his mother.

His mother read it and went white and said, “ _Oh_ ,” and then studied him closely, like she’d never looked at him before.

Patrick that night also studied himself closely, looking in the mirror, sweeping his eyes over how unremarkable he was, his wispy red hair, his blue-green eyes, his pale freckled skin. Patrick was small and scrawny and not at all interesting. No one at school ever noticed him. He kept his mouth shut and tried not to attract attention. The letter made no sense. Someone had to be playing a trick on him.

But it was an elaborate trick. Over the summer he kept getting letters from a Mr. Wentz, who claimed to be the “Muggle Admissions Coordinator of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.” Mr. Wentz’s communications included quizzical instructions like _You must tap the proper brick to get into Diagon Alley to get your wand_ and _The goblins at Gringotts will be happy to exchange your Muggle money for you_ and _To gain access to Platform 9¾ one should run at full speed at the wall between Platforms 9 and 10_. If he so preferred, Mr. Wentz wrote, he would be happy to meet him and his parents and guide them through his shopping trip for school.

Patrick brought the letters to his mother and stepfather. They were causing issues. Patrick was aware of furious fights between his parents, during which his stepfather snarled cruel things about one of the kids being bound to take after their weirdo father, and his mother always begged him to keep his voice down about the whole thing.

Patrick had no idea how to “send an owl,” as Mr. Wentz kept requesting, but his secondary suggestion was, _If an owl isn’t available, I can be reached by regular Muggle post_ , with an address afterward. Patrick wrote a careful letter to Mr. Wentz explaining that his parents were super-busy people who couldn’t make the trip to London with him, but would he be willing to meet him to buy him everything on his own?

Mr. Wentz sent him an owl with a letter in its talons that read simply, _Of course. Looking forward to meeting you, Patrick!_ And there was a chocolate frog enclosed. Patrick ate his chocolate frog and ignored the hissed disagreements from the kitchen downstairs about whether Patrick was going to turn out to be “odd.”

Patrick left his mother a note that he was going to London on the appointed day and went to meet Mr. Wentz at the address he gave him. He didn’t know how he was going to recognize him but instead Mr. Wentz recognized _him_ , probably from the fact that when he walked into the pub, everyone stopped talking to stare at the little kid who had just walked into a _pub_ , and then a man wearing a very pretty blue robe swept up to him and beamed down at him, “Hello, you must be Patrick, it’s so nice to meet you,” and held out his hand to be shaken like Patrick was a grown-up.

Patrick shook his hand and tried to feel very grown-up as he replied, “Thank you so much for meeting me.”

Mr. Wentz said, “I know how confusing this can be for a Muggle-born. I went through it myself. I’m committed to making the situation better. Did you have any idea you had magical talent?”

Patrick admitted his deep, dark secret. “I don’t have any magical talent. This is all a mistake.”

Mr. Wentz smiled. “We don’t make mistakes. Come pick out a wand, dear.”

And that day Patrick held a stick in his hand and made things _float_ , and he felt like something slotted into place inside of him. He wasn’t an awkward, embarrassing human; he was a _wizard_.

His mother was furious when he got home, ranted and raved at him, but Patrick, with a calmness that he had never previously felt in his life, said, “I’m going to that school and you can’t stop me.”

And his mother paled, the same way she had when he had first shown her his letter, and didn’t fight him. His parents drove him, grim-faced, to King’s Cross, and he said, as grown-up as he’d felt that day at Diagon Alley, “Good-bye,” and ran through a wall and into a new life.

Patrick spent his train ride to Hogwarts being shy and poring over _Your Guide to the Hogwarts Houses!_ A few people wearing green and silver sneered at him for not knowing what house he was going to be in and Patrick crossed off _Slytherin_ in his guide, because fuck them. Although one of the green-and-silver boys said to him, “Hey, not everyone knows, surprises happen,” which might have been a little nice, but then the other ones threw some kind of unpleasant stinkbomb thing into his compartment and he had to abandon it, and so, on the whole, Slytherin stayed crossed off his list.

Patrick decided that he wanted Hufflepuff. _Hard work, dedication, patience, loyalty, fair play_. He liked the way that sounded, and he clearly wasn’t clever enough for Ravenclaw or flashy enough for Gryffindor.

The Sorting Hat whispered to him, _You don’t know yourself very well, you’re a Gryffindor through and through_ , and Patrick thought, _What! There’s no way!_ But the Sorting Hat shouted, “Gryffindor!” and Patrick thought at it furiously, _Fuck you_ , and the Sorting Hat laughed in his head.

But whatever, Gryffindor was fine. It was actually kind of nice to be in a house where everyone was much showier and Patrick could just keep his head down and fade into the background. Whenever he went home, his parents and brother and sister were astonished by him, like he was some kind of amazing thing, and Patrick thought, _You have no idea, I am the least interesting person at Hogwarts_.

But, honestly, he was totally fine with that. 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorting is exhausting! So, to save from sorting every member of bandom into houses, I decided to throw in some JKR-ish-named OCs.

Pete didn’t sleep the night before the morning of the first day of his last year at Hogwarts.

He would have said he was nervous, except that Pete generally didn’t sleep much, and it was hard to pinpoint a cause for that. He just…didn’t sleep. At school he could sometimes steal himself a sleeping potion but that was strictly off-limits in his parents’ house and so Pete just dealt with the long sleepless nights all summer.

“This is an important year,” his father said to him seriously over a breakfast Pete wasn’t interested in eating. “You’ve made Quidditch captain, and that’s important. Play your best so you can get scouts interested.”

“You could also try to make at least a couple of N.E.W.T.s,” his mother suggested. “Maybe? Possibly? Hmm?”

“Yeah, that, too,” his father said, clearly having given up on that idea entirely.

“Really,” his mother sighed, “I thought Slytherins were supposed to be ambitious.”

Pete watched his sister polish her shiny new prefect badge, beaming. He watched his mother fondly knot a red-and-gold tie around his brother’s neck. _Grandfather’s Gryffindor tie. For good luck_. Pete thought, _This is the last time I have to go through this fucking morning_ , and pulled a Slytherin sweater over his head and ignored the way his mother flinched at the sight of it.

On the train, the seventh-year Slytherins commandeered a compartment and were loud and boisterous. Pete slumped in a corner and watched the countryside roll by. No one bothered him, because he was known to have moods every so often where he disengaged, and people let him, because he always came back, louder and more eager for troublemaking than before.

“Last year,” Cicero Sullivan enthused as they went into the Great Hall for Sorting. “Best year, am I right?” He bumped shoulders with Pete, trying to shake him out of his lethargy.

“Oh, yeah,” Pete said. “Totally.”

“Quidditch Cup,” Amabel Featherwright said. “All the way.”

Oh, well, that was _obvious_. There wasn’t a player at the school as good as Pete was; that was just a simple fact. So Pete shrugged.

The Sorting took forever, as it always did, and a new little crop of Slytherins settled at their table, and then McGonagall made the announcements, the usual rules that Pete ignored. He yawned, exhausted, and thought maybe he might sleep that night, which would be nice.

McGonagall said, “As a reminder, this year is a Yule Ball year, which, as you know, is a Christmas celebration that we hold every four years, which may be attended by fourth years and up. This year at the Yule Ball entertainment will be provided by…” McGonagall paused, building suspense. Pete yawned again. “…one of you!” she announced.

There were murmurs around the hall. Pete tipped his head, vaguely intrigued.

“In November,” McGonagall continued, “we will be holding a contest, in which all students are invited to participate. At this contest, student bands will perform, and the victor will be named after the contest and will play at the Yule Ball. Full rules will be posted…”

Whatever McGonagall was saying about rules was lost in the excited chatter around the Great Hall. “Oh, hey,” Cicero said, “that has _got_ to be won by a Slytherin band. Who do we know who’s musical? We’ve got to have a House meeting and figure this out.”

Pete listened with only half an ear. Because Pete knew a musical Slytherin. _He_ was a musical Slytherin. Not that anyone in the House knew quite the extent, because it was one of the things about himself that Pete kept a closely guarded secret. He wasn’t that great at any instrument, but he loved music, adored it, fantasized about how awesome it would be to be in a band, up on stage, singing words the crowd knew and sang with him, words that were no longer hidden in a notebook but were out there in the world and everyone would understand what they meant and _get_ them.

“Pete,” Doria Druffel said to him excitedly, “I can totally play the piano, I’ve taken lessons since I was four, I bet I can be in the Slytherin band.”

“What?” Pete said, totally not interested in Doria Druffel’s piano lessons.

“We don’t want a band with a _piano_ ,” Livia Lyon said scathingly. “Pete, tell her, the Slytherin band needs to be so much better than that.”

Pete would ask why he was in charge of the Slytherin band already, except that he was in charge of everything Slytherin, and he’d worked hard for that, even though he also kind of hated it. He said, “Uh, well, this is unexpected, we need to give everyone time to develop their acts, and then we’ll hold auditions.”

“Fuck auditions,” Cicero said. “We need to just figure out what our best chance to win is. I mean, _obviously_ we have to win, this is our _year_.”

“Yeah, yeah,” said Pete. “Yeah. Totally. Our year.”


	4. Chapter 4

Patrick’s sixth year was supposed to be a fog of N.E.W.T. preparation, now that his O.W.L.s were behind him and his subjects were chosen. But Patrick sat in the Great Hall and McGonagall announced a _band contest_ and every non-music thought exited Patrick’s head. _A band contest_. What the fuck, he’d been preparing for a band contest _his entire fucking life_.

The problem was that nobody else knew that.

When you kept to yourself so much, it was hard to show up in your sixth year and get anyone to believe that you knew _a lot_ about music. So much more than anybody else in the House knew about music. That you had a vinyl collection hidden away in your trunk, precious and beloved, that you sometimes just sat and _looked_ at, hearing them playing vividly in your head because that’s how you were about music. That you wrote songs compulsively, melodies in your head endlessly. That you played every instrument that mattered, really well.

Patrick, sitting in his accustomed ignored corner in the Gryffindor common room, listening to the rest of his House chatter on about the contest and coordinating practice times and how exciting this all was, didn’t know how to speak up. He didn’t know how to say, _Hey. Everyone. I’m here, too, and this is my thing I’m actually good at, I swear_.

Hildebrand Hathaway had spelled a quill to write down the song suggestions everyone else was shouting at it. They had apparently decided they were going to be a cover band.

Patrick took a deep breath and said, “Or we could write our own music,” not nearly loud enough for anyone else to hear.

No one looked in his direction except for a terrified new first year who was also hiding in the quiet corner, hoping not to be noticed.

Patrick had to get himself out of this corner. He took a deep breath and crept his way to the edge of the enthusiastic crowd. He braced himself for everyone looking at him, for making himself the center of attention, and then said, more loudly than was necessary, practically shouting it, “We could play original songs.”

This silenced everyone, their heads swiveling to look at him, and Patrick could feel himself blushing and wished—very much not for the first time—for an invisibility cloak.

“Sure, Patrick,” Cat Connelly said kindly. “But probably nobody here writes music.”

The rest of the group agreed immediately. _No, no, nobody writes music_.

“I write music,” Patrick said, not loudly enough again. He sighed in frustration and spoke up. “I write music.”

The looks he got this time were slightly less kind. They weren’t used to Patrick talking so much, they probably didn’t know what to make of it.

Cat said, “Oh. Well, that’s cool, Patrick. We can listen to some of your songs sometime.”

“I’m sure your songs are great,” Hildebrand said, “but, like, we are in this to _win this_. We can’t just be playing any old thing.”

“Hildebrand’s right,” Cat said apologetically. “Playing songs everyone knows and already loves is definitely our surest way to win.”

And they were right, of course. They were totally right. Patrick was an idiot.

“Right,” he agreed faintly.

Although by then everybody had moved on, and he faded back into his quiet corner, cursing himself for having said anything.

The first year said to him, “I bet your songs are awesome. That’s cool that you write music.”

“Yeah,” Patrick said, and shrugged. “I mean. It’s fine.”


	5. Chapter 5

The thing that Pete knew frustrated his teachers so much was he was smart, and he was dedicated, and he was stubborn. He just was never those things about his classes.

But he was all of those things about this band contest now.

And the thing that made him a Slytherin was he was _ruthless_ about it.

The Slytherins, like the rest of the school, were obsessed with this contest. Warring practices were constant in the common room, skirmishes breaking out between the knots of students competing to represent them in the competition. Pete’s common room life these days was just people playing music badly and surreptitiously peering over at him to see his reaction. Pete tried to keep himself completely stone-faced, because he didn’t want to give away what he truly thought:

These people were all fucking awful. Pete was not forming a band with any Slytherin. That was out of the question. House loyalty didn’t count for as much as _quality music_. Pete had too much respect for music to torture it in this way. Pete needed to look outside of Slytherin for people good enough to make a band with him. Pete was aware that he himself wasn’t all that good, musically speaking, but if he could get the right group of people around him, he was sure that he could make the rest of it work.

So Pete took all of his smart, dedicated stubbornness and focused it on finding the most talented musicians at Hogwarts.

He focused on Joe Trohman right away. Joe was a sixth-year Hufflepuff who took the _puff_ part of his House name very seriously, and even though that wasn’t Pete’s thing, sneaking out to sit on the roof and brood _was_ his thing, so he knew Joe Trohman. And he knew that Joe was a killer guitarist because he’d heard Joe play one night. That had been a memorable night in a lot of ways, because Joe’s playing had attracted Peeves, and Peeves had told on them, and he and Joe had had to outrun detention slips back to their respective Houses. But, aside from that, Pete also remembered being amazed at how good Joe was at guitar, because Pete had taught himself bass, secretly, during sleepless summer nights, and he was nowhere near as good as Joe.

Pete had xylomancy with Joe, and ordinarily everyone stuck to their Houses but Pete sidled up to Joe as they were leaving class and said, “Hey, can I talk to you?”

Joe looked surprised but said, “Sure,” and followed Pete into the nearest boys’ bathroom, which Pete made sure was deserted while Joe looked on with growing interest.

“Okay,” Pete said finally, satisfied, and turned to Joe. “Are you doing the band contest?”

“Does that seem like my type of thing?” Joe asked. “I’m not into school-sanctioned extracurriculars.”

“Sure,” Pete said, because he knew this about Joe. “But this is music. I thought you’d make an exception for music.”

Joe looked dubious. “Why would I do that? My music doesn’t need this school’s seal of approval, dude.”

“It’s not about the school’s seal of approval,” said Pete earnestly. “It’s about _making good music_.”

“Is it?” asked Joe skeptically.

“I want to start a band.”

“Cool,” Joe said. “You’ve got a whole House who’d follow you off a cliff if you gave the word.”

“There isn’t anyone in my House as good as you. I want to start a _good_ band.”

“Wow,” said Joe. “Cold, Wentz.”

“Slytherin,” Pete reminded him.

“True,” Joe allowed.

“And the rules talk about bands composed from within Houses,” said Pete. “Not bands _across_ Houses. Come join my rule-breaking band, Joe Trohman. The only band worth joining.”

“Hmm,” said Joe, clearly attracted by the rule-breaking. “Who else is in it?”

Pete shrugged. “I don’t know. You’re my first acquisition.”

“I’m not an acquisition,” Joe said.

“Recruit?” suggested Pete.

“Lead guitarist,” Joe said. “That’s me.”

“Okay,” said Pete. “I play bass.”

Joe blinked. “Do you? You never said that.”

“I don’t talk about it much,” Pete said, trying to sound casual about it.

“Do you sing?” Joe asked.

Pete hesitated. “Sure,” he decided finally. Good enough.

“Okay,” Joe said. “Then we need a drummer.”

“Do you know any?” Pete asked.

Joe frowned. “No. Honestly, this place is a drag for music. These bands are going to be terrible. We’d probably be able to win without a drummer.”

“Let’s try to find one, though,” Pete said. “I’ll keep my ears open.”

“What songs are we going to play?” Joe asked.

Pete knew what his preference was. He took a wild gamble and said, “I would love to play, like, pop punk.”

And Joe, a Muggle-born, said, “Wait, like, _my_ type of punk? Muggle punk?”

Pete nodded.

“Pete Wentz,” Joe said with as much excitement as Pete had ever seen him have, “this year just got way more interesting.”


	6. Chapter 6

Patrick was in the library trying to make sense of arithmancy. It wasn’t going super-well, and all around him students were whispering excitedly about the band contest, and Patrick was in a foul mood. No one ever stopped fucking talking about the band contest, and it was so fucking annoying. Gryffindor had formed a band that kept having truly atrocious practices in the common room, singing truly atrocious songs. This was why Patrick was hiding in the library, trying to ignore how much awful music was in his life at the moment, and he wasn’t able to ignore it, because across from him a couple of Hufflepuffs were talking about the band Neurosis. Patrick knew the band Neurosis. They were a Muggle band. Patrick had some of their albums. Patrick could talk super-intelligently about Neurosis. Instead, one of the Hufflepuffs had no idea who the band even _was_ , kept saying things like, _oh, yeah, they sound like they could be cool_.

And Patrick—Patrick kept his head down, Patrick never said anything, Patrick swam under the radar, and Patrick was finally fucking sick of it. All around him people were pretending to be experts in a thing he lived and breathed and slept and ate and he _kept not saying anything about it_.

And so Patrick, at this moment, snapped, “You’re not allowed to have an opinion about Neurosis until you’ve seen them live.”

The Hufflepuffs stopped talking and stared at him.

And then one of them said slowly, “Wait a second. Have you seen Neurosis live?”

“Of course,” Patrick said, furious at everything. “Of course I have. _I love music_. So shocking to believe I might _know what I’m fucking talking about_.”

The Hufflepuffs blinked at him.

The librarian said harshly, “Mr. Stump, ten points from Gryffindor for that language, and ten points from Gryffindor for speaking loudly in the library.”

The other Gryffindors in the library frowned at him.

Patrick thought, _Fuck all of this_ , and gathered up his books and stalked out of the library.

“Hey!” a voice called from behind him. “Wait up!”

Patrick didn’t stop walking, because it was outside the realm of possibility that someone was looking for _him_.

Except the voice said, “Yo! Red-headed Gryffindor kid!”

And Patrick supposed that did describe him.

He stopped curiously and looked behind him.

One of the Hufflepuffs was running up to him, the one with the wildly curly hair.

Patrick waited for him, disbelieving. No one was ever looking for him.

“What’s your name?” he asked as he reached him, a little breathless from dashing after him.

“Patrick,” Patrick said, trying to figure out what was going on.

“Hi, Patrick,” said the kid. “I’m Joe.” He held his hand out.

Patrick, after a moment, shook it, perplexed.

“Do you play music?” Joe asked.

Patrick went still. He stared at Joe. He said, strangled, “What?”

“Do you play anything?” Joe repeated.

“What? Why?” Patrick couldn’t imagine why he was being asked this question. Joe was in Hufflepuff. What did it matter what instruments Patrick might play?

“I’ve got this band. It needs a drummer. You know Neurosis. I’m thinking our interests might align, and if you play the drums, I’m thinking I’m writing a whole twelve-inch parchment on this for divination, because it’s _fate_.”

“I…I play the drums,” Patrick said numbly, because he did, he played most things.

Joe’s face lit up. “Amazing,” he said. “ _Amazing_.”

“But…you’re in Hufflepuff,” Patrick pointed out the obvious.

“Yeah. Oh, no, don’t tell me. Are you playing for Gryffindor’s entry?”

“No, actually. They don’t…” Patrick decided against saying _they don’t want me_. He said, “No. I’m not.”

“Good,” Joe said, obviously relieved. “Then you can come play for my band.”

“I don’t want to play for Hufflepuff,” Patrick said, but reluctantly, because it was a _band_ , and Patrick wanted to play for _any fucking band_.

“No, man, it’s a cross-House band. I wouldn’t play for Hufflepuff, either.” Joe made a face.

“A cross-House band?” Patrick echoed. “What do you mean?”

“Do you know Pete Wentz?” asked Joe.

Patrick snorted. “Who doesn’t know Pete Wentz?” Pete Wentz was by far the most inescapable personality in the whole school.

“Cool,” said Joe, like there might have been a possibility Patrick didn’t know who Pete fucking Wentz was. “I’m in the band with Wentz.”

Patrick stared at him. “You want me to join a band with Pete Wentz.”

“Yeah.” Joe shrugged. “Why? Do you have a problem with Pete?”

“I mean…” Patrick didn’t know him. Not personally. And truthfully he’d never heard anything really bad about Pete, just that he was one of those larger-than-life people who sucked all the air out of a room and made everything about them all the time. And he was the undisputed king of Slytherin House, and Slytherins were generally awful, but upon reflection Patrick had never heard of _Pete_ doing anything awful. He was just…Pete Wentz. And Patrick was…not Pete Wentz.

When Patrick didn’t say anything, Joe said, “Look, he’s cool, he likes music, he wants to do this pop punk sort of thing. That seems like that might be your type of thing.”

Well, fuck, that did sound like a thing Patrick might want to do. He said, “Are they even allowing cross-House bands?”

“You think Pete Wentz won’t get them to allow cross-House bands? Have you ever met him?”

“No,” Patrick admitted. There would have been no circumstance, before this moment, when he would ever have crossed paths with _Pete Wentz_.

“Oh, then you’ll see. He’ll make it happen. Are you in arithmancy?”

“Yes,” Patrick answered slowly.

“Me, too,” Joe said. “I’ll talk to Pete and then I’ll let you know in class where and when we can meet to have you play for us.”

Patrick said, trying to sound as casual about this as Joe did, “Yeah, sure, okay, cool.”

“Cool. See you later, bro.” Joe held out his fist and Patrick tried to bump it in a fashion that indicated he was totally used to this and Joe did some kind of complicated thing like they already had a secret handshake and then headed back to the library.

Patrick looked at the nearest portrait, where a little boy was playing with a fluffy-furred puppy. “Did that guy just ask me to be in a band with him and Pete Wentz?” Patrick asked.

“Sounded like it to me,” the little boy answered cheerfully.

“What the _fuck_ ,” breathed Patrick. He’d just been asked to be in a band. He’d been _asked_. To be in a _band_. To play the _drums_. His fucking _first love instrument_. In a _pop punk band_.

Patrick looked all around him. The hallway was deserted. He let himself do a little hopping, skipping dance of incredible joy and celebration and said to Peeves when he discovered him watching him, “Don’t even try to make fun of me today, Peeves, this is the best day of my _entire life_.”


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have been traveling for work and I am so exhausted :-( I'm behind on replying to comments but will catch up, but I wanted to get this chapter up in case I fall asleep!

“I found us a drummer,” said Joe on the rooftop, blowing smoke away from Pete, because he was polite like that.

“You did?” asked Pete eagerly. “Where?”

“In the library. Random, right?”

“You were in the library?” said Pete.

“ _I know_ ,” said Joe. “Who knew drummers who like Neurosis were just hanging out in the library? I should study more often.”

“They like Neurosis?” Pete frowned. “You can’t have an opinion about Neurosis unless you’ve seen them live.”

“That’s exactly what he said,” Joe informed him.

“Huh,” said Pete, brought up short by this revelation. “Who is he?”

“Some Gryffindor named Patrick.” Joe shrugged.

Pete frowned, thinking. “Is he a first year?”

Joe shook his head. “My year. Or yours. I don’t know. We have arithmancy together.”

“He’s not my year,” Pete said. “I think I know all of the Gryffindors in my year. Patrick? I’ve never even heard of a Patrick here before. You’re sure that’s his name?”

“That’s what he said his name is.”

“Patrick who likes Neurosis?” Pete was skeptical. “There’s a kid who likes Neurosis at this school and I didn’t know?”

“Oh, like you know everything about the school?” Joe said, and took another hit off his joint.

“I feel like I should have known _that_. My brother and sister are in Gryffindor. It doesn’t seem like the kind of House that has a Neurosis fan lurking in there. Also, Gryffindors are so… He’s not playing for the Gryffindor House band?”

“He said no.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know. Ask him, dude.” Joe sounded vaguely irritated.

“You said that I was in the band?” Pete asked.

“Yeah. I told him I was going to talk to you and get a time for him to come and play for us.”

“And he wasn’t like, ‘I cannot be in a band with Pete Wentz, for he is a Slytherin and I am a Gryffindor, and forsooth we are sworn enemies’?”

“He did not say that,” said Joe, “because he wasn’t born in 1552.”

“So he said, ‘Cool, I’ll be in a band with Pete Wentz’?” Pete couldn’t believe this. In his experience, Gryffindors weren’t banging down the Slytherin door to hang out with him.

“I mean, I had to talk you up a little bit,” Joe said. “I said you were cool. Try to act cool when you meet him so we can trick this kid into agreeing to be our drummer.”

“Oh, ha ha, you’re hilarious, Trohman,” Pete said.

“Whatever, I don’t see you getting us any drummer candidates.” Joe gave him a smug look.

“I’ve been working on it,” Pete said, because he was. He was pretty sure, in fact, that he’d just uncovered the fact that Andy Hurley, a seventh-year Ravenclaw, was a drummer, because he’d just gotten in trouble for tapping his wand in an irresponsible—but perfect—beat in advanced Muggle studies. But hey, Joe had already gone and gotten them this mysterious Patrick kid, so it was all good.

“So. When and where do you want to meet this Patrick dude?” Joe asked.

Pete needed the rest of his House to not know that he was starting a rival band. He said, “We’ve got to make it late. Can we say midnight on Thursday, the Room of Requirement?”

“Works for me,” said Joe, and blew more smoke into the air.

***

Patrick had never snuck out of the Gryffindor tower past curfew. He’d never had a reason to before. He’d never been invited to the Room of Requirement, either. That was for other people, other people at the school who had _lives_ and _friends_ and _things happening to them_.

Maybe Patrick was suddenly, against all odds, one of those people?

It seemed more likely this was a fluke. Patrick was going to meet Pete Wentz tonight and Pete Wentz was going to be scathing about how uncool Patrick was and that was going to be the end of all of this.

If Patrick thought too hard about that, he felt like throwing up, so he tried not to think too hard about that. He tried not to think beyond the song he was going to play for his audition, which was of his own composition, because he’d made up his mind that if he was doing this, he was _doing this_. He had music. He was going to be totally brave—he was going to be a _fucking Gryffindor_ —and play his music for Pete Wentz. He wasn’t going to join a band that wasn’t going to let him write the music.

It was much easier to imagine how brave and insistent he was going to be before Pete Wentz entered the Room of Requirement. Patrick got there first, breathlessly early, and there was a gorgeous gleaming drum set waiting for him, beckoning to him. Patrick sat behind it and relaxed, felt at home, felt like he could do this. He was a really good drummer. He was going to make this band, no problem.

And then the door opened and Joe walked in, followed by Pete Wentz.

And Patrick had, of course, seen Pete Wentz before, but it had always been from a distance, from across the Great Hall, or on the other side of a classroom. From a distance, he’d seemed generic, uninteresting, pointlessly popular. Up close, Pete was unmistakably not generic, unmistakably interesting. Patrick was thrown by the honest curiosity in Pete’s brown-gold eyes as they swept him up and down.

“Huh,” he said. “You really are in Gryffindor.”

Patrick looked down at the Gryffindor sweater he was wearing. That probably wasn’t cool. He should have worn something else. Pete was wearing a Metallica t-shirt that showed off tattoos on his arms. _Whatever, Pete Wentz_ , thought Patrick, annoyed that he actually _was_ as attractive as everyone kept saying he was, now that Patrick was right in front of him.

“Well, they had to put me somewhere,” Patrick said tightly. “Does it matter?”

Pete looked a little surprised. “It doesn’t matter to me if it doesn’t matter to you.”

“It only matters if you’re going to be an asshole and this is all a trick,” Patrick said suspiciously.

Pete looked more surprised. “It’s not a trick. Why would it be a trick?”

Patrick shrugged. _Because nobody notices me, so I don’t get what’s happening here_ , didn’t sound like something he wanted to say.

“Maybe you can just play the drums for us,” Joe suggested. “How’s that?”

Patrick took a deep breath and started, then stopped not more than two beats in. “Okay,” he said, because he’d _promised_ himself he’d be brave. “Here’s the thing.”

“You don’t play the drums,” Pete concluded flatly.

Patrick glared at him. “I play the drums. I’m going to play them for you. It’s my own composition.”

Pete blinked. “Your own what?”

“I write music.” And Patrick decided, what the hell, Pete was too cool for him anyway and there was no chance he was going to be asked to be in this band so he might as well be as outrageous as possible. “I’m not joining a band unless I can help write the music. I don’t want to join some loser cover band. If I’m doing this, I’m doing this _right_ and we’re playing original music.” Pete and Joe gaped at him when he was done talking, so he finished awkwardly, “So. That’s a thing.”

“You write music,” said Pete. He sounded…curious. On the whole, there was something more open and inquisitive about Pete than Patrick had expected. His reputation was that he was jaded and unimpressed, but he seemed eager, cautiously excited, like he didn’t want to let it show too much, like he was almost embarrassed by it. It made Patrick relax a little. Patrick knew what that felt like: loving something so much you hoped it didn’t show. He’d built his entire Hogwarts career around that idea. “Joe didn’t say you wrote music.”

“He didn’t tell me,” Joe defended himself.

“It’s not a thing I go around saying,” said Patrick.

“I get that,” said Pete approvingly. “Play us something you wrote.”

“Okay,” Patrick said, and took up his drumsticks.

And then Pete said, “Not on the drums.”

“Huh?” said Patrick, bewildered.

“How are we supposed to rate you as a songwriter off the _drums_?” said Pete, wrinkling his nose. “Do you sing?”

“No,” Patrick said immediately.

“Oh,” said Pete, with a smirk. “That’s definitely a yes.”

“No,” Patrick said. “No, it’s not. I don’t sing. I sit behind the drums and nobody looks at me, because nobody notices the drummer and everybody notices the singer.”

“Not if the singer’s standing next to me,” said Pete matter-of-factly, and Patrick kind of couldn’t argue with that. “Sing us one of your songs.”

Patrick took a deep breath. He wanted to argue more but he also knew that Pete had a point, that the best way to prove how good he was as a songwriter was to sing them an actual song. He closed his eyes so he wouldn’t have to watch Pete and Joe watching him, and he opened his mouth, and he sang.

And when he was done he opened his eyes slowly, hesitantly, terrified of the absolute silence in the room.

Pete was staring at him with his jaw hanging open, looking a little dazed. Patrick had no idea how Joe reacted because once he looked at Pete, he couldn’t look away. “Oh, fuck,” Pete said breathlessly, and then a smile curled onto his face, and the thing about Pete Wentz—Patrick wondered nonsensically if the rest of the school knew this—was that when he _smiled_ , he was _devastating_. “Patrick from Gryffindor, you magnificent creature,” said Pete Wentz, “we are going to win this contest.”


	8. Chapter 8

Pete, sneaking out of the Slytherin dungeon, did not have high hopes about this Patrick kid. He’d tried desperately to pick him out of the crowd at the Gryffindor table in the Great Hall and didn’t see anybody who looked like a drummer who liked Neurosis. He would have suspected Joe of playing a prank on him, except this didn’t really seem like Joe’s type of prank. Joe’s prank probably would have involved a toilet, not inventing a mysterious Gryffindor drummer.

He met Joe and they went to the Room of Requirement together, and Pete tried not to show how skeptical he was of Joe’s drummer. He didn’t want Joe to think he was an asshole who wasn’t going to be supportive.

And then Pete stepped into the Room of Requirement and there, swallowed up behind a drum set, in a Gryffindor sweater, was a pale kid with feathery copper hair worn shaggily long, and glasses, and a mouth that should have been confined to the pages of _Wands Out_ porn. And then he _started fucking singing_.

Pete Wentz—fell in love. Fell in love with the vision of his band he could now see in front of him. Patrick from Gryffindor had a one-in-a-million voice. And the song he sang was soaring and melodic. Terrible lyrics but Pete had lyrics, Pete had a notebook spilling over with lyrics.

Pete said, “Patrick from Gryffindor, you magnificent creature, we are going to win this contest.” And then he looked at Joe. “He’s a real person, right? He hasn’t just been dreamed up by the Room of Requirement to be perfect for me?”

“Hey,” Patrick said, sounding annoyed. “I’m right here and of course I’m a real person, asshole.”

“Just checking,” Pete said, and clapped his hands together once to punctuate that he was going to deliver Serious Band Logistics. “Great. This is great. We’ll practice here, at midnight. Every night? Or is that too much? How seriously do you take school? Are you going to want to do well on your N.E.W.T.s?” Pete asked Patrick.

“What? Wait. No,” said Patrick, shaking his head. “Hang on.”

“Fine,” Pete said. “We can do every other night. Monday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday? How’s that?”

“No, wait,” said Patrick, frowning. “I’m supposed to be the _drummer_. I haven’t even played the drums for you yet.”

“Patrick, you’re not hiding that voice behind a drum set. Joe, tell him.”

“He’s right, dude,” Joe said. “That voice is something else.”

“I can’t be the singer,” said Patrick desperately. “Would you listen to me? I can’t be the singer! I can’t have all those people looking at me! I’m really bad at that. We’ll find another singer.”

“It’s fine,” Pete said. “You’ll be fine. We’ll get you some Felix Felicis.”

“ _What_?” squeaked Patrick. “Definitely not, that is definitely not allowed at the contest, have you lost your mind?”

“I meant to use for practicing beforehand, so you’ll see how great you are. But have it your way.”

“I’m not fucking around with that stuff,” Patrick said firmly. “It’s not going to be necessary anyway, because I’m not going to be the singer.”

“Patrick. Lunchbox. Can I call you Lunchbox?”

“What? _No_ , you can’t call me _Lunchbox_ , what the fuck.”

“You’re freaking out because the lead singer is the frontman of the band.”

“ _Yes_ ,” said Patrick fervently.

“And I’m telling you that this is _my_ band. I’m the frontman of this band. That is not your job. Your job is to close your eyes and sing with that voice of yours. I’ll do everything else.”

Patrick shook his head.

“You want someone else to sing your music? You want _me_ to sing your music? I can’t sing,” said Pete.

“You said you could sing!” Joe exclaimed.

“Shh,” said Pete, not taking his eyes off Patrick, because he could tell that argument was compelling to Patrick.

Patrick opened and closed his mouth, then swallowed thickly. “I mean,” he said hesitantly. “I don’t… I don’t want the songs _ruined_.”

“Exactly.” Pete internally congratulated himself for his winning argument.

“But I don’t want to have to sing them. Couldn’t we find someone else to—”

“Nope. Got to be you. It’s fine. It’s going to be fine. Trust me, right?” Pete grinned at Patrick, broad and confident.

Patrick didn’t look convinced. “I’m not going to be a good lead singer. I’m really boring and dull and I can’t be in charge of a band.”

“First, again, you’re not in charge. I’m in charge. Second, you’re the opposite of boring and dull.”

Patrick gave him a look. “Did you have any idea who I was before tonight?”

“No,” admitted Pete, “but we’re not in the same House.”

“I knew who _you_ were. Everyone knows who the interesting students are.”

“Aw, Patrick, are you saying I’m interesting?” asked Pete, grinning.

“Shut up,” said Patrick sullenly. “I’m saying that nobody notices me and that’s _fine_.”

“And I’m saying it’s not fine because you’re fucking amazing and if I have to make Pete Wentz’s Hogwarts legacy be Patrick…whatever’s voice, then so be it.”

“Stump,” Patrick said drily. “Patrick Stump.”

“Patrick Stump,” Pete said, and paused. “It’s an unfortunate name.”

“Your last name is Wentz.”

“I didn’t say mine was better. How many songs do you have?”

“How many do you want?” asked Patrick.

“How many do you have?” Pete asked again.

“How many do you _want_?” countered Patrick again.

Pete frowned. “How many do you _have_?”

“Okay,” said Joe, “this doesn’t seem like a productive conversation.”

“I’m just saying,” Patrick said, “I have _a lot_. I mean, I don’t know how good most of them are, but we could fill a whole set.”

“Like, a thirty-minute set?” said Pete.

Patrick gave him another look. He had this particular look that very eloquently said, _How has it become my lot in life to deal with this idiot?_ He said, “No, the Yule Ball doesn’t last thirty minutes, Pete.”

Pete blinked. “You’ve got enough music to fill the entire Yule Ball spot?”

Patrick shrugged, now looking vaguely embarrassed. He blushed easily, red at the tip of his ears and suffusing over his cheeks. Pete was momentarily distracted by how pretty he was.

Joe was saying something about, “Cool, cool, so we’ll have a lot of music to learn, then.”

Patrick gave Pete a strange look, and Pete realized he was staring. He cleared his throat and scratched the back of his neck awkwardly.

Patrick said, “I guess I’ll choose some of my favorites and we can get started next time?”

“Yes.” Pete nodded, pulling himself together. “By then I’ll have a drummer for us.”

“And maybe another singer?” Patrick suggested hopefully.

“Lunchbox,” Pete said, amused. There was no way they were getting another singer.

“Don’t call me that, what does that even _mean_?”

“I will make a deal with you, okay? If I can find a singer at this school better than you, then we’ll replace you as the singer.”

Patrick regarded him suspiciously, then said, “Okay, pinkie swear with me,” and held out his little finger.

“Do what?” Pete asked, confused.

“Pinkie swear,” Patrick said, wiggling his finger.

“It’s a Muggle thing,” Joe said, and to Patrick, “Pete can be hit-or-miss with Muggle things.”

“Shut up,” Pete said, embarrassed, because he liked to try to blend in with the Muggle world. “What do I need to do?”

“Link your finger with mine,” Patrick said.

Pete, after a moment, crooked his finger around Patrick’s. They looked weirdly good intertwined like that, Pete’s darker skin against Patrick’s very pale finger. Pete had a sudden very vivid flash of performing this action all up and down their bodies, pressing his skin up against Patrick’s for the contrast, how gorgeous it would look at shoulders and hips and thighs, how nice Pete’s fingers would look splayed against—

“Okay,” Patrick said, with a little tug, separating them. “That is _binding_ now.”

“He’s right,” Joe said solemnly.

“We could have done an Unbreakable Vow,” Pete muttered.

“I don’t want you to actually _die_ ,” Patrick told him. “That’s such overkill, wizards are so overdramatic.”

“I wouldn’t die, I don’t break promises.”

“Hmm,” Patrick said, and the _Slytherin_ was definitely implied.

Pete narrowed his eyes, annoyed. No one ever moved past the Slytherin thing. “Anyway, let’s meet again the night after tomorrow. You can bring us your favorite songs and we’ll go through them.”

“Yeah,” Patrick said. “That sounds good.”

They staggered the times they left the Room of Requirement to try not to attract attention, and Pete was the last one out, and he was surprised when Patrick called his name softly.

“The whole point to leaving separately was to _leave separately_ ,” he said, as Patrick came up to him.

“Yeah. I know. Listen. I didn’t want you to think that I don’t trust you. Right? It’s just. We just met. And.” Patrick gestured.

“And I’m a Slytherin,” Pete finished for him.

Patrick actually looked surprised. “What? No. That’s not it. It’s just you’re you, and I’m me.”

“Slytherin and Gryffindor,” Pete said, confused, because _yeah_ , he _got this_ , he didn’t need Patrick to keep drilling it in.

“No.” Patrick’s face twisted with displeasure. “What are you talking about? Who gives a fuck about that? I’m saying that you’re the star of the fucking school and I’m the weird kid in the back row nobody talks to. So I’m sorry if I don’t really trust that the coolest kid in school suddenly thinks I should be the lead singer of his band.” Patrick paused. “Not that I’m saying you’re the coolest kid in school. I mean, _I_ don’t think that. Just, like, _other people_ might say that about you. Because you play Quidditch. And stuff.”

Pete stared at Patrick.

Patrick said uncomfortably, “Don’t let it go to your head, I don’t think you’re that cool.”

Pete honestly could not have cared less about this stupid discussion about his coolness. Pete was stuck on the fact that he couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a conversation with someone who genuinely didn’t seem to care what House he was in. He couldn’t remember the last time someone had looked at him and not seen a Slytherin. He said, “Thanks,” with way more sincerity than he’d meant to, but he couldn’t help it.

Patrick hesitated, obviously caught off-guard by Pete’s tone of voice, then said, “Okay. I just didn’t want you to think I don’t trust you.”

“So you do trust me?” said Pete, just to watch the tips of Patrick’s ears go red.

“It’s just a little early to be talking about trust,” Patrick said.

Pete laughed. “I’m teasing you. You blush. It’s cute.”

“It’s not cute,” Patrick said, blushing harder. “Stop it.”

“Patrick, your voice is amazing. I mean, your _fucking voice_. There’s no way I should be the star of the school while you’re here. I’m going to tell you that every day until you believe it.”

“I’m going to quit this band.”

“No, you’re not,” Pete said, and he didn’t know where this certainty came from. He just knew that standing here with this red-headed Gryffindor felt like fate, felt like something he should have read in tea leaves in divination, felt like the first _right_ thing to ever happen to him at Hogwarts. And it just seemed like he couldn’t possibly be alone in feeling this way, that Patrick had to feel the way they were sliding into place next to each other.

Patrick looked at him for a long steady moment. His blue-green eyes were inscrutable behind his glasses. He said finally, “I’ll see you in a couple days.”

“Bye, Patrick,” Pete said, and watched him all the way down the hallway, feeling a curious fluttering sensation in his chest the whole time, like a troublesome Cornish pixie had gotten stuck in there and was trying to find a way out.

_We’ll make them so jealous_ , Pete wrote in his secret notebook when he got back into his bed in the Slytherin dungeon. _We’ll make them hate us_.

He smiled and stuck it under his pillow and actually managed to fall asleep.

***

Patrick slipped back into the Gryffindor common room, which was deserted at this hour, the fire died down to embers. He looked around just to make sure he was alone, and then he fell onto the sofa and muffled a shout of joy into a pillow. He was _in a band_. He had been asked to be in a band and they were going to _play his music_. They hadn’t laughed at him, they’d _agreed_.

Patrick rolled onto his back and looked at the ceiling over his head. Okay, yeah, also his bandmates were delusional and thought he should sing when he was clearly not cut out to be a singer, but whatever, they would work through that, and in the meantime he had a _band_. He was a _songwriter for a band_.

Patrick could not stop grinning. He got ready for bed and crawled in but he thought it was pointless. He definitely wasn’t going to be able to sleep. He might never sleep ever again. He would just live on music alone. It was fucking incredible.

He had a band. And that band had Pete Wentz. Pete Wentz who had been not at all what Patrick had expected. He had been… Patrick closed his eyes and saw warm amber eyes, the flash of that teasing smile. It was stupid, Pete probably flashed that smile at anyone who came close to him, but tonight—tonight he had flashed it just at Patrick, Patrick alone, and Patrick tucked the memory of that safe inside him, a warm glow. Tonight an incredibly attractive boy had smiled at him, had told him he was amazing, had been enthusiastic about his music. Patrick would have disbelieved the likelihood of any of those things ever happening, and in one night _all three had happened_.

Patrick didn’t want to fall asleep, because he was worried that he would wake up and realize this had all been a dream.

In the morning, Patrick went to breakfast in the Great Hall with the rest of the Gryffindors. He looked for Pete over at the Slytherin table, because he couldn’t resist. He expected Pete to be surrounded by a bunch of more important people he was paying attention to, but instead his eyes were on Patrick, like he’d been waiting for him to walk in.

Patrick blushed and, embarrassed, tried to hide behind his porridge.

But then he got an owl. He said to it, “You don’t mean me. You’ve got the wrong person,” because his family didn’t send owls.

The owl was insistent, and when Patrick looked at the letter it was carrying, it…did say his name.

Patrick couldn’t conceal his surprise. He had literally never gotten an owl before. He couldn’t imagine who could possibly be sending him one now.

The letter read, _Dreamed last night of your incredible voice. –P._

Patrick looked up, across the Great Hall to the Slytherin table. Pete was still watching him, and now Patrick could see his lips curve into one of his ridiculously beautiful smiles.

Patrick blushed again and tucked the letter into the pocket of his robe. If he kept taking it out all day to look at it, well, who could blame him?


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oops, I got so caught up in the [amazing summer challenge fics](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/Summer_Lovin) yesterday that I forgot to update!

Pete Wentz’s life narrowed into the pinpoint of Patrick. Patrick, whose gorgeous mouth fell open when Pete showed up to the next practice with a drummer and not a singer.

“You promised—” Patrick started.

“I promised to replace you as a singer if there was anyone at this school who was a better singer than you,” Pete reminded him. “There’s not. Sing for Andy.”

“I don’t sing on _command_ ,” Patrick said sulkily. “I’m not your _singing toy plaything_ or whatever.”

“Okay,” Pete agreed, amused.

“But, Patrick,” Joe pointed out. “We’ve got to hear some of your songs.”

Patrick chewed on his lush lower lip and Pete watched the action avidly. Then Patrick said, “Fine, I’ll sing, but only because I have to teach you the songs and _Pete_ didn’t bring us another singer because _he’s not really trying_ —”

Patrick gave Pete a baleful look.

Pete tried to look innocent when he was in the middle of wondering what Patrick would do if he leaned forward to bite Patrick’s bottom lip for him. _You look nervously thoughtful, let me bite that on your behalf_.

“—and I am doing this for the _music_ and not for _Pete_ ,” Patrick finished grandly, with an indignant sniff of self-importance.

Pete couldn’t have hidden his smile if he’d tried, so he didn’t try. He let it beam forth, because Patrick was fucking _adorable_.

Joe just said, “Yeah, okay, whatever, we don’t do anything for Pete,” and Andy said blandly, “Really? Pete told me it was his band,” and Patrick muttered, “I swear to fuck, I’m going to quit this fucking band,” but then he started singing, walking them through a few of his songs.

Andy said at the end of the practice, “Dude, it hurts me to say this, but Pete’s right, you’re definitely the best singer at this school.”

Patrick scowled in Pete’s direction, like _he_ was the reason Patrick had been given such a beautiful voice.

_Let me just give that lower lip a tug with my teeth_ , Pete thought, dazzled.

Patrick showed up to the second practice with a guitar. “Since you’re failing to find another singer,” he said grumpily, “I’m going to play guitar. I can’t just stand up there and sing.”

He seemed to think someone was going to challenge him, but everyone just shrugged, and Patrick naturally turned out to be a brilliant guitar player the way Patrick was brilliant at everything.

Everything but lyrics. Patrick wrote out copies of the songs they were working on, and Pete brought them back to the next practice with so many words crossed out that he’d basically rewritten the songs at that point.

Patrick looked at the utterly destroyed piece of paper wordlessly, expressionlessly.

Pete said, “I think they’re better,” because he did.

“They’re just words,” Patrick said. “What does it matter?”

Pete’s jaw dropped open. “What does it _matter_? Patrick, it’s the most important part!”

“The most important part is how it sounds,” Patrick said. “It’s music.”

Pete was so floored he couldn’t react.

Patrick tucked Pete’s rewritten lyrics into the pocket of the jeans he was wearing—jeans, and a Coltrane t-shirt, he’d abandoned the Gryffindor gear, to Pete’s relief—and turned to Joe and Andy. “Okay, so if we start from the top with—”

“Hang on,” Pete interrupted. “We have to have a fight.”

Patrick looked at him. “Huh?”

Joe and Andy sighed and went back to the latest issue of _SIREN!_

“Thus far, I have resisted fighting with you, Patrick Stump, for you are my Lunchbox, and I love you.”

“No, I’m not,” Patrick said, “and no, you don’t.”

Pete ignored him. “But we have to have a fight now. The words _matter_. What songs say _matters_. It’s the words and the music together. Like. It’s a whole package. It all matters.”

“Some songs don’t even have words,” Patrick points out.

“Right, but the ones that do, they should be _good words_. You don’t want to put half-assed words into the world.”

Patrick frowned. “Do you think my lyrics are half-assed?”

Pete considered a diplomatic response.

Pete took too long considering a diplomatic response.

Patrick huffed and said, “Never mind, let’s just have rehearsal.”

Which was an extremely unsatisfying conclusion to that discussion, in Pete’s opinion.

Pete was determined to prove himself right. He was determined to win this argument the way he’d won the one about Patrick singing. Patrick hadn’t mentioned the possibility of another singer for three straight practices now. Pete was declaring victory. It was time to move on to the next apparent battle front: the lyrics.

There was a Hogsmeade trip coming up and under ordinary circumstances Pete would have been all over a Hogsmeade trip. He loved getting out of the suffocating atmosphere of the school, he loved the wider world in which to cause mischief, he loved being reminded that his life wasn’t always going to be the way it currently was, that most of life would happen post-Hogwarts. But Pete had no interest in going on this Hogsmeade trip. Pete wanted to stay at school and take advantage of the relative desertion to work on rewriting lyrics in peace. He was determined to make them the best lyrics ever, he couldn’t just dash them off, he needed _time_ and _concentration_.

He had literally zero ideas for a good reason why he might stay back from a Hogsmeade trip, and he couldn’t very well say he had to write lyrics for his secret rival band, so the morning of the trip he gave himself a fake fever. Madam Abbott would have seen through it immediately, but it was good enough to fool Cicero, who couldn’t imagine a reason Pete would fake being ill and miss Hogsmeade.

“It’s okay,” Pete said, dramatically weak, with a few well-placed coughs. “Go on without me. I wouldn’t want to ruin everyone’s fun.”

“You’re sure?” Cicero said dubiously. “Should we take you to the infirmary first?”

Pete shook his head. “I’ll get one of the first years to take me if I don’t feel better in a bit.”

“Hmm,” said Cicero, then shrugged. “Okay. We’ll bring you back something from Honeydukes, hopefully you’ll be feeling better then. Rotten luck, Pete.”

“I know,” Pete agreed solemnly. “Seriously.”

He waited for everyone to leave for Hogsmeade, and then he made an appearance in the Slytherin common room, where every first- and second-year was taking advantage of the higher years being gone to complain about how they had been shut out of the Slytherin band contest entry. When he appeared they all thronged him with their grievances and he coughed hollowly and said, “Got to go to the infirmary, probably have something super-contagious, it’s probably dragon pox.”

They didn’t look like they knew what to make of this, and in their confusion Pete managed to escape.

He stopped at the owlery to send Patrick his usual daily owl of adoration, scrawling on a torn piece of parchment, _Your voice is like Expelliarmus: utterly disarming_.

Then he went to the Room of Requirement, which naturally had an enormous desk and a beautiful supply of quills and parchment all ready for him. He smiled, satisfied, and spread all of Patrick’s lyrics out. Then he pulled his enchanted notebook out. And then he started working.


	10. Chapter 10

Patrick never went to Hogsmeade. His parents said that they didn’t trust a wizarding village and they especially didn’t trust his “fake wizard school” to keep him safe there, so they refused to sign the permission slip, so he always had to spend Hogsmeade days wandering around Hogwarts feeling sorry for himself.

Today, though, Patrick was looking forward to everyone leaving. Because last night Patrick had started reading Pete’s rewritten lyrics, and now Patrick couldn’t get them out of his head.

They were better. They were _ten thousand times_ better than anything Patrick had written. They were spiky and biting and sharp and Patrick read them feeling like he was watching Pete bleed ink all over the parchment. Patrick almost couldn’t believe Pete seemed to seriously want him to sing these words to everyone. Patrick thought of how he couldn’t bring himself to stand up in front of a crowd and sing, and that was _nothing_ in comparison to stripping your soul bare the way Pete was doing with these lyrics. If Pete could be this brave, surely Patrick could be brave enough to sing these words for him. Surely he could do it _for Pete_.

Patrick read the lyrics over and over and over, trying them out under his breath, scared to sing too loudly because he was keenly aware of the first- and second-years still running all over the tower. And then an owl swooped through the window.

Pete’s daily owl. Patrick had been sure that eventually they would stop, that Pete would lose interest in the joke, but every day there was an owl, saying something ridiculous about Patrick’s voice. He’d thought maybe Pete would miss today, given the Hogsmeade trip, but no, here was an owl with a ridiculous message. _Your voice is like Expelliarmus: utterly disarming_.

Patrick, for the benefit of self-deception, rolled his eyes. It was easier to act like Pete was ridiculous if he never let down his guard, if he never stopped pretending that Pete’s antics were over the top and annoying. Patrick resisted the urge to even so much as _smile_ at Pete, convinced that once he did he would never stop. Not that it discouraged Pete even a little, Pete smiled at him endlessly, no matter what Patrick did Pete was inclined to find it worthy of his glee. Patrick was utterly bewildered by it, didn’t know what to make of it, but it had gone on for long enough now that he had decided Pete wasn’t mocking him. Pete seemed terribly earnest in his belief that Patrick was amazing, no matter how unlikely that was.

The only response to that that Patrick could manage was stern disapproval, because his only other response would have been to melt into a puddle at Pete’s feet.

Still. Patrick saved all of Pete’s foolish notes. He tucked them in his nightstand, a giddy pile of them now that he allowed himself, once a week, to take out and go through, admire, sigh over, and pretend that they made sense and meant something _real_. Once a week Patrick was allowed to read the notes in Pete’s voice, hearing Pete in his head, imagining him murmuring into Patrick’s ear. Once a week, no more or Patrick would get lost in this fantasy world and never be able to come out. Once a week, no less or Patrick would disintegrate over how badly he wanted to keep re-reading them.

It wasn’t his day to moon over his notes, so he tucked this one away and decided to get himself out of the bedroom, before he wasted the entire day there daydreaming about Pete Wentz.

Maybe he would practice singing these lyrics, really practice them, let himself belt them out, be brave about it.

Patrick left Gryffindor tower completely unnoticed, the younger students didn’t even glance up as he slipped past them, and went to the Room of Requirement.

And found it occupied.

Patrick stood just inside the door, frozen in surprise.

Pete looked up from whatever he was doing, and then slapped a small notebook shut and slid it into his back pocket as he stood. “Patrick,” he said, clearly caught off-guard, “why aren’t you in Hogsmeade?”

“I never go to Hogsmeade,” Patrick said, “why aren’t _you_ in Hogsmeade?”

“I…” Pete’s eyes flickered toward the desk he’d been sitting at, so Patrick looked at it, too. Parchments were laid out all over it, crowded tight with Pete’s handwriting.

Patrick said suddenly, realization dawning, “Are you writing?”

“Um,” said Pete. “The thing about your lyrics is.”

“Yours are way better,” Patrick said, because he’d been a dick to Pete for weeks now when Pete had been nothing but nice and Pete deserved at least that much.

Pete blinked. “Oh. Wait, what?”

“Yours are better.” Patrick walked into the room, pulling Pete’s battered songs out of his pocket and placing them on the desk. “I’ve been reading them, and I can’t get them out of my head. They’re so good. They’re _so good_.”

Pete stared at him, his gold-brown eyes wide and uncertain. Most of the time Pete outlined his eyes with dramatic black eyeliner but today they were unlined and they made him seem less breezy than he usually seemed. They made Patrick want to say all the nice things he thought about Pete that he’d been storing up, and that caught now in his throat, a traffic jam of compliments.

Pete said, “Really? Do you think so?”

“Pete,” Patrick said honestly. “Do I ever not tell you exactly what I think?”

“No,” Pete admitted slowly.

“So. Don’t fight with me about this. They’re amazing. You’re really good. Do you want to do the lyrics?”

Pete nodded, his eyes still latched onto Patrick. He looked wondering and hopeful, like he’d never dared to dream Patrick would be _nice_ to him. Patrick was such an _asshole_ , he hated himself furiously, why couldn’t he just be nice to this nice, hot, popular boy who seemed to _like_ him for some reason?

“Okay, then,” he said awkwardly, because he was cursed to just always behave like an idiot near Pete Wentz, he was powerless to stop it. “Glad we got that settled. I can go now.”

“No,” Pete said. “Wait. You were surprised to see me here so you didn’t come in to say anything about the lyrics. So what were you coming here for?”

“I was going to practice,” Patrick said, because he felt like he couldn’t lie. “But it’s okay, I can skip a practice day if you want to keep the room.”

Pete looked at the pages Patrick had put on the desk, then back at Patrick. “Practice,” he echoed.

Patrick knew Pete was drawing the correct conclusion, so he said, “Yeah, I was going to try out your words. See how the songs sound with your words.”

“Can I stay?” Pete asked.

And that was a lot, a lot to ask that Patrick stand there and be watched while he sang Pete’s words for him. But, of all eyes that could be on him, Pete’s were the best. Pete’s were the eyes he dreamed of, in the disjointed dreams he had about performing, dreams where he was singing and Pete’s eyes were watching, warm and approving. Pete’s were the eyes watching him now, so bright, so hopeful, so adoring.

“Okay,” Patrick said.


	11. Chapter 11

The Room of Requirement provided a microphone, and Patrick looked nervous behind it. Usually these days he was hidden behind a guitar, too, and it felt weirdly naked to see him without it. He held Pete’s lyrics in his hands and looked at them fixedly, to avoid looking at his audience, Pete assumed.

Pete tried to be as small and unnoticeable as possible, sitting very still so as not to attract Patrick’s attention. He felt a little bad asking Patrick for this at all, but hey, he was greedy and selfish and a _Slytherin_ , and he felt like every nerve ending was vibrating with excitement over the prospect of his words in Patrick’s mouth. How could he have possibly denied himself asking for this? If Patrick had said no, he would have left. But Patrick had said yes, and so Pete was going to savor every second of it.

Patrick opened his mouth and started singing. _In poison places, we are anti-venom_ , Patrick sang, and Pete couldn’t, he _couldn’t_ , he shuddered and watched, open-mouthed, and _listened_ , to how beautiful Patrick made everything sound, every desperate, messy, unmanageable thought in Pete’s brain. Patrick strung them together and made them sound like there was a vague sense lurking underneath them, a thread of method to Pete’s madness. There wasn’t—this was all magic, Patrick’s magic, more magic than Pete had ever known existed at Hogwarts, all bundled together in this shy, unassuming Gryffindor in glasses, with his shaggy strawberry golden hair and eyes like the Great Lake and ridiculous mouth and voice like the ringing of a fucking bell.

Patrick sang three songs straight through, all of them with Pete’s rewritten lyrics, slightly modified to fit Patrick’s melodic phrasing better, and when he was done, the last note fading on the air, he looked up hesitantly, through his copper eyelashes, an action that would have been flirtatious on anyone but Patrick, who did it so genuinely, with such forthright bashfulness, that its charm was more effective than a million seductions.

“I mean,” he said awkwardly, “that was my first time singing them all the way through with the new lyrics. So. It’s a little rough, but it’ll get better.”

Pete closed his eyes, just for a second, just to give himself a little relief from the battering of Patrick on his senses, and said, “ _Patrick_.”

“If you didn’t like it,” Patrick said, “we can—”

Pete opened his eyes. “Not like it? What are you talking about? That was _incredible_. You made my words sound like…sound like someone else had written them.”

Patrick looked doubtful. “Is that a good thing?”

“Yes,” Pete smiled. “You made them sound _beautiful_.”

“They are beautiful,” Patrick told him. “That’s not me.”

Pete shook his head, because Patrick was wrong, but he didn’t want to fight about it, so he didn’t say anything more about that. He just said, “Thank you.”

Patrick shrugged and came over to sit next to him. A second chair had appeared. The Room of Requirement always thought of everything, Pete thought fondly. “You’re sure you’re okay with me singing these?”

“What? Yes. I want you to.”

“They’re just…so you. I’d understand if you want to just keep them for yourself.” Patrick gave him a look, curious.

Pete concentrated on twirling a quill through his fingers. “No one knows who I fucking am. They’ll never realize the words come from me, and if they did, they’d think it was a joke.”

“Pete,” Patrick said softly.

“It doesn’t matter,” Pete said briskly, gathering the papers up. “The songs are great. The songs are fantastic. I’ve got more lyrics, maybe you want to go through them?” Pete thrust the pile of parchment at Patrick.

Patrick took it and glanced down at it. “Yeah,” he said. “Sure.”

“So you stay behind on every Hogsmeade trip?” Pete asked, desperate to change the subject away from his lyrics now. Ordinarily he would have preened a while longer, but Patrick made him feel dangerously close to the kind of self-pity he much preferred to confine to the notebook.

Patrick shrugged. “My parents aren’t super into this school.”

Pete barked an unamused laugh. “I wish that was my parents’ problem.”

Patrick gave him another one of his curious looks, like he would have delved into Pete like a pint of butterbeer if Pete let him. Pete just wasn’t sure he was ready to let him.

He said quickly, “So what do you do while the rest of the school is gone?”

Patrick shrugged again. “I don’t know. I usually go through my record collection.”

“Records like _vinyl_?” Pete said, and didn’t know why he was surprised, Patrick was at that very moment wearing a vintage Bowie t-shirt, of course he had a vinyl collection.

“Yeah,” Patrick said, blushing like he was supposed to be _embarrassed_ about this.

“Can I see your record collection?” Pete asked. He felt like he was pushing his luck, Patrick had already sung for him today, but Patrick said, “Really? You really want to see it?” sounding like his fondest wish in the entire universe was to show someone his record collection and he didn’t think anyone could ever possibly be interested.

“ _Yes_ ,” Pete said. “You show me yours, I’ll show you mine.”

Patrick’s jaw dropped, like Pete had said the most shocking thing, like Pete had said he was hiding Horcruxes in his bedroom or something. He said, “You have a record collection, too?”

Pete smiled. “What do you take me for? Of course I have a record collection.”

***

The Fat Lady in the portrait outside Gryffindor Tower looked at Pete with lascivious interest. “Who are _you_?” she purred.

“He’s no one,” Patrick said hastily, and the Fat Lady looked at him as if she hadn’t seen him next to Pete, which was probably true. “Can you just let us in? Folderol.”

“Hmm.” The Fat Lady narrowed her eyes at him, then looked back at Pete. “I’m not supposed to let non-Gryffindors in, but you’ve got a nice smile, kid.”

“Thanks,” said Pete easily, flashing said smile, and Patrick felt grumbly as the portrait swung open. Yes, yes, Pete was hot and had a great smile, yes, yes, _whatever_.

The first- and second-years in the common room all looked up when Patrick came in and regarded Pete with silent interest, but none of them said anything as Patrick led Pete straight through and up to the tower, into the sixth-year boys’ bedroom.

When they got into it, Pete went to the window and looked out it and said, “Huh. So this is Gryffindor Tower.”

“Yeah, it’s fine,” said Patrick, opening the trunk at the end of his bed and pulling his albums out.

Pete turned back from the window and said, “Oh, fuck, wait, you weren’t kidding when you said you have a collection.”

Patrick froze in the act of removing more albums. “Did you think I was joking?” he asked anxiously. _Why, why, was he always doomed to act like an idiot in front of Pete?_

“No, but, I mean, I can’t show you my collection after this, it’s _embarrassing. Look_ at all of these.” Pete scrambled onto Patrick’s bed, plowing his way through the albums Patrick had piled there.

It was probably natural for Pete to sit on his bed—there was nowhere else in the room to sit—but still Patrick stared at him, dry-mouthed, as he sprawled onto his stomach, occupying the bed like he absolutely belonged there.

Pete, apparently oblivious to Patrick’s rioting fantasies, said enthusiastically, “This is amazing. Look at what you have. This is _amazing_ ,” leafing through the albums.

Patrick said, feeling embarrassed at the profusion of praise the way he always did, and even more thrown by Pete being on his _bed_ focused on records and Patrick focused on so many other things, “I go to a lot of record stores.”

“I’m so jealous,” Pete said, “I always have the hardest time finding Muggle record stores.”

“You can just Google them,” Patrick pointed out.

Pete snorted and said, “I love that you think my parents allow access to the Muggle internet. Who knows what nefarious things I might uncover there?”

“Oh.” Patrick tried to imagine his life without record stores and couldn’t. They were the thing that made summers bearable. Poor Pete. He said without thinking, “I can take you to some next summer,” and then bit his tongue at how revealing a statement that was. Who was he kidding? Once they lost this band contest Pete would lose interest in him and they definitely wouldn’t still be friends next summer.

But Pete just grinned at him and said, “That would be fucking awesome. Can we listen to this one?” He held one up.

“No,” Patrick said.

Pete’s grin flickered into a frown. “Oh.”

“I mean,” Patrick corrected hastily, “we can’t listen to any of them. I don’t have a record player.”

Pete raised his eyebrows. “You’ve got this gorgeous record collection and you can never play it?”

“I hear it in my head,” Patrick defended himself.

“Patrick, Patrick, Patrick,” said Pete, shaking his head.

“Electronics don’t work right here,” Patrick muttered sullenly. “It’s fucking annoying.”

“It is. Which is why my record player is charmed.”

If Patrick were the type—the bold, opportunity-grabbing type—Patrick would have tackled Pete into a passionate kiss for that statement. “You have a record player here? A _working_ record player?”

Reclining comfortably on Patrick’s bed, surrounded by Patrick’s records, like special Patrick-specific porn created just for him, Pete gave Patrick an arch look, like he knew exactly the direction of Patrick’s thoughts. “You show me yours, I’ll show you mine,” Pete drawled.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SORRY I'M LATE!! :-)

The Gryffindor first- and second-years looked at Patrick with silent awe as Pete followed him out of the common room, clearly too impressed by Patrick to say anything to him.

Not so for the Slytherin first- and second-years, who never had any awe when it came to Pete and immediately began chattering at him as soon as he showed up, inquiries about his health and did he want to go out to the Great Lake with them or maybe he might be interested in some Quidditch practice.

Pete felt Patrick take a step closer to him, close enough that Pete could _feel_ him, could have reached out to intertwine their fingers. The possibility was tempting, and Pete had to bite on his tongue to keep from twitching his hand in Patrick’s direction. 

Instead he said, “Wow, all of that sounds like so much fun, but it turns out I’ve totally got dragon pox, this dragon-pox-healer right here with me is going to try to get everything figured out but for now everyone should stay away.”

This silenced the younger students for a moment, and then they launched into renewed chattering, worried this time.

“It’s okay,” Patrick said loudly. “Pete’s going to be fine. I’m totally a dragon pox expert. I just need everyone here to go wash their hands no fewer than seven times _in a row_.”

After an agape moment, the first- and second-years stampeded toward the bathrooms.

Pete said admiringly to Patrick, “Good job,” and led him back toward the seventh-year boys’ bedroom. 

“They _love_ you,” Patrick said, sounding amazed. “That’s so sweet.”

“It’s a little annoying,” Pete said. “Every time in and out of the common room is kind of like that. Sorry you got caught in it. I need to work on being more awe-inspiring like you.”

Patrick snorted. “I’ve perfected the art of having an invisibility cloak without having the actual cloak.”

Pete paused outside his bedroom and looked at Patrick. “You’re kidding, right? You’re not invisible. Those Gryffindor kids were so hero-worshipping, they were all tongue-tied at being in your presence.”

Patrick rolled his eyes. “Yeah, okay.”

“I mean, look at you,” Pete persisted, “you are _by far_ the coolest Gryffindor, you’ve got a _vinyl_ collection, and a bunch of incredible vintage band t-shirts, of course those kids are totally reverent in your presence.”

“Is this your bedroom?” Patrick asked. “I’m going in your bedroom now,” and then he opened the door and walked through the doorway.

“You think that’s going to distract me,” Pete began, following Patrick into the bedroom. And then…there was Patrick, cross-legged on his bed, his appealing mouth twisted into a smirk. “Okay,” Pete managed, strangled, “I’m distracted.” He was shocked by how deeply, elementally he was distracted. Patrick in this space affected Pete like being hit full-on in the chest with a Bludger, short of breath and dizzy and too stunned to move just yet.

“Show me yours, Wentz.” Patrick gestured to the record player on Pete’s nightstand, which was clearly how he’d identified which bed was Pete’s. “Make it play.”

Pete cleared his throat and shook his head to clear it and walked over to the bed, putting the record he’d taken from Patrick’s room onto the turntable. “It’s actually a pretty straightforward charm, once you understand how the thing’s supposed to work.” He pulled his wand out of his back pocket.

“Can you charm everything electronic?” Patrick asked, watching Pete’s wandwork with avid interest. “Could you make my phone work?”

“No, that’s too complex. I can really only handle older technology like…this…” The record started turning, the needle settling into the grooves, and then music started playing. “See?” Pete had to admit that he’d always been a little proud of this record player charm, and it was worth it for the look of wonder on Patrick’s face.

“ _Pete_ ,” he said, sounding impressed, like Pete had done something magnificent. “That’s _amazing_. You must be really good at charms! I could never do anything like that!”

Pete shrugged. “I did it for advanced Muggle studies, and it wasn’t good enough for a N.E.W.T., so.”

“Not good enough for a N.E.W.T.?” Patrick gasped incredulously. “What the fuck is wrong with these people? You made a record player work! If that’s not good enough for a fucking N.E.W.T., what is?”

“Tansy Tatler wrote a whole thirteen-inches of parchment on how magic could have saved this Muggle ship called the Titanic,” Pete said, and pretended he wasn’t still bitter over how much attention that had received.

“Well, that’s stupid,” Patrick said. “The Titanic thing happened a hundred years ago, like, magic isn’t going to do anything about that because blah blah Time Turner rules. You brought _music_ to life. Obviously music always trumps.” 

Patrick kept coming back to band practice and he had never asked Pete to stop sending owls and he had used Pete’s _lyrics_ , but at the same time Patrick was stingy with smiles, rolled his eyes a whole lot, and sometimes held himself very carefully away from Pete, like Pete might reach out and shatter him somehow. So Pete felt touched by this praise, as he said, “Aww, thanks, Patrick.”

Pete thought Patrick would roll his eyes or blush or something but instead he looked at Pete with startling directness, his eyes behind his glasses picking up on the dim green light in the room and reflecting it back to Pete. He said with interest, “How did you discover Muggle records?”

Which was a fair question. And Pete, in his enthusiasm for getting to indulge his story about falling in love with Muggle records, clambered onto the bed with Patrick, sitting opposite him, not even thinking about their proximity and location. “My mom is from a Muggle family, and her mom had the most incredible record collection. I’m the oldest kid, and some summers my mom would send me to spend a couple of weeks at her parents’ place, like it was summer camp or something. And it was _so great_. My grandma used to play me all of this really fabulous stuff she had, Joplin and Hendrix, you know, and also, like, Hawkwind and Gong. It was fantastic. She was fantastic. The record player was hers, actually, she gave it to me to take to school with me my first year, when it promptly broke because: electronic in Hogwarts. It took me years of fiddling with it to figure out how to fix it.”

Patrick was smiling faintly at him, pretty and sweet. “She sounds awesome.”

“She _was_ awesome,” Pete replied. “She died a couple of years ago.”

Patrick’s smile faded. “I’m sorry.”

Pete shrugged and picked at his bedspread. “It’s okay. After she died, that’s when I got really determined to make the record player work, and I just took it entirely to pieces, and I had all these Muggle books I made the library get me to try to explain the inner mechanisms, so I guess her death was…” Pete cleared his throat and decided, “Very motivational.”

“Yeah, but you’d rather have your grandma than her record player,” Patrick pointed out sympathetically.

Pete looked at the record player, at Patrick’s record playing steadily on it, and might have said, in other circumstances, _Whatever_. But Patrick’s gaze was steady on him, soft and kind, and Patrick never looked at him like that, people in general seldom looked at him like that but it felt extra-special that it was Patrick, and so Pete admitted, “Yeah.” Then he looked at Patrick. “I suppose you were brought up surrounded by Muggle records?”

“No, actually. No one in my family is really a music person. My mom says I get it from my dad, but, I don’t know, he left when I was little, I don’t remember him and my mom never talks about him. I’ve just…always wanted music around me. I’ve always had it in my head. I can’t remember a time it wasn’t keeping me company. All I want is to make music. It’s the only ambition of my entire life. I could give less of a fuck about all of the rest of it. I just want to put music out there into the world. You letting me do that, it really…” Patrick took a deep breath, then said in a rush, “It really means a lot to me that you’re letting the band play my songs and I’m so much an asshole to you all the time so you probably don’t know but it’s all I ever wanted to do and you’re giving me a chance to do it, so thanks.”

Pete stared at him, caught completely flat-footed by Patrick being…being _this_ , all these slices and slivers of Patrick he wanted to gather up by the armful and place protective charms over, and Patrick rushed into the space of silence after his speech, while Pete gaped at him, with, “Also, there’s a squid outside your window.”

“Yes,” Pete said faintly. “The giant squid. It’s very friendly. Patrick—”

“It’s okay,” Patrick said quickly. “It’s whatever. We don’t have to, like—Does it watch you when you sleep?”

“Does what… Huh?” said Pete.

“The giant squid.” Patrick waved a hand toward the window.

“Wow, I…never thought about that before,” said Pete.

“Well, I would be thinking about that,” said Patrick.

“Way to successfully change the subject,” Pete remarked, drily, and turned to wave at the giant squid.

When he turned back, Patrick was watching him inscrutably, and Pete didn’t know what to say. Should he mention how beautiful Patrick’s music was spilling out of him? Should he pretend he didn’t think Patrick’s music was amazing? Should he pretend he didn’t think _Patrick_ was amazing?

“Patrick,” he said, and then didn’t know what came next. He was kind of hoping Patrick would give him a clue.

Patrick just kept watching him.

Pete would have kissed him, except that kissing him seemed terrifying at that moment. Patrick seemed so untouchable just at that moment, so open and vulnerable and honest that to press his way into that, against that, to steal a kiss when Patrick seemed so defenseless, didn’t seem right. Not for a first kiss. He didn’t want Patrick to associate Pete’s kisses with the exposure of this moment, when Patrick wanted to talk about giant squids and pretend he hadn’t just said what he’d said. To punctuate the moment with a kiss felt smarmy to Pete, like he was taking advantage, like he was pressing this genuine and sincere moment from Patrick into his own agenda.

Pete Wentz might be a Slytherin, but he had limits, damn it.

So Pete said to Patrick, “Hey, want a snack?”


	13. Chapter 13

The first- and second-year Slytherins were back in the common room when they came back into it on their way to the kitchen for a snack, and they clamored around Patrick with their concern about Pete.

“I think he’s almost totally cured,” Patrick said gravely. “I’m just going to give him another dose of dragon venom potion to make sure I got every last drop of dragon pox.”

The first- and second-years looked relieved.

“How did you get dragon pox, Pete?” one of them asked, sounding fascinated.

Pete said, “You know, every once in a while you…run into a dragon,” and shrugged.

“It’s classified information,” Patrick said, giving Pete a harsh look. “Don’t say another word, you know the Ministry vowed you to secrecy.”

“Oh,” Pete said. “Right. Sorry.” He mimed zipping his lips and looked contrite at the younger students.

The younger students stared up at Pete in awe, and Patrick marched them out of the common room.

“ _Patrick_ ,” Pete said when they had achieved the hallway. “That was _amazing_. Look at you!”

“Well, you said you wanted them more in awe of you.” Patrick shrugged.

“Lunchbox, you are my favorite partner in crime,” Pete beamed at him.

“Okay,” Patrick said, because he had told Pete how he felt about music, a thing he’d never put into words before, never confessed to anyone. He felt like today he could do _anything_. He was going to enjoy this day, this moment in his life, like he had enjoyed nothing before.

“See, you’re a natural at this cool intimidation bit,” Pete enthused, bouncing next to him as they walked.

“Sure,” Patrick replied indulgently.

“And you’re _agreeing_ with me!” exclaimed Pete. “What is this amazing day? I _love_ this day.” Pete bumped shoulders with his, looking deliberately playful, and Patrick recognized that this was Pete trying to give Patrick room to breathe after the speech on Pete’s bed.

So Patrick matched his tone. “You’re the most ridiculous wizard I’ve ever met,” Patrick told him, “and that is saying something. Think about how ridiculous so many wizards are.”

Pete laughed. “I’m going to take that a compliment.”

“You take everything as a compliment,” Patrick pointed out. “The other day I told you that your bass-playing sucked and you said you were going to take it as a compliment.”

“It _was_ a compliment,” Pete rejoined. “You noticed my bass-playing.”

“To say how terrible it was,” Patrick reminded him, because Pete seemed to be missing that point.

“You’re a perfectionist. Coming from a perfectionist, that’s a compliment.” Pete sounded as if he thought his logic was unassailable.

Patrick shook his head, giving up the fight.

Pete said, “Do you really think I’m more ridiculous than Waddling Wilma?”

“Who is Waddling Wilma?” asked Patrick.

“You don’t know about Waddling Wilma?” exclaimed Pete. “She turned her big toe into a pumpkin.”

“…What?” said Patrick.

“And then no one could figure out how to change it back. She just had a pumpkin for a big toe for the rest of her life.”

“A normal-sized pumpkin?” Patrick asked. “Or a toe-sized pumpkin?”

Pete looked flummoxed. “Oh, wow, you know I’ve never thought to ask that question before?”

Patrick started laughing. He couldn’t help it. “But that is such vitally important information! How could you never have asked that?”

“I didn’t… I don’t know… Hang on, I can’t think when you’re doing that.”

“Doing what?” asked Patrick, wheezing for breath.

“ _Laughing_ ,” said Pete, and smiled at him like he was doing something amazing.

Which, maybe he was. Patrick couldn’t remember the last time he’d laughed himself out of breath. He leaned up against the wall in the hallway leading to the kitchen and smiled back at Pete, helpless to do anything else.

And then Pete said abruptly, looking weirdly serious, “This might still be a terrible idea, but fuck it.”

_Uh-oh_ , thought Patrick. “What?”

“If I kissed you right now, would that be okay?”

Patrick had already been breathless, so it was amazing that he somehow managed to lose _more_ of his breath. He stared at Pete, whose eyes were huge and dark and not at all mocking, and somehow—somehow—Patrick abruptly _believed_ him. Realized that actually, really, he had believed him all along, and who had he been kidding trying to pretend otherwise? He believed every flirtatious note, believed every enthusiastic compliment, believed every moment when Pete’s eyes watched him in the great hall and Pete’s mouth smiled at him no matter what Patrick was saying or doing. Patrick had believed Pete for so long now that it was habit, it was _habit_ to catch him watching, it was _inevitable_ they would end up kissing, Patrick had been uselessly, pointlessly pretending for so very long that they weren’t going to end up exactly here, in this space, in this moment, with each other, Patrick just… Patrick nodded, too breathless to say, _Yes, kiss me_.

Pete stepped forward, slow and hesitant, watching Patrick like he expected him to change his mind. He ducked forward just as slowly, incrementally, giving Patrick plenty of time to say no, but Patrick just closed his eyes and thought, _Yes, please, yes_. And then Pete pressed his lips against his. That was it, really, a chaste brush of lips, small sipping tastes. Patrick had made out much more passionately with random Gryffindors in mutual experimentation.

And yet being kissed this way by Pete made him never want to kiss anyone else ever again. He felt like he’d been waiting for Pete’s kiss his entire life, like a fucking fairy tale princess waking up in a cartoon, how fucking irritating, how fucking _amazing_.

_You’re magic_ , Patrick wanted to breathe at Pete, and then thought that would be highly humiliating and also Pete wouldn’t really get it, would laugh quizzically, because _of course_ Pete was magic, but Patrick meant an entirely different sort of magic.

Pete drew back, and Patrick opened his eyes, and they looked at each other for a moment, and then Pete smiled, brilliant and dazzling, which was always the way Pete smiled but there was a new edge to it, like it had climbed to another level. Patrick thought it was almost impossible to look at.

Patrick smiled back, _dizzy_ with…something.

“Do you know how long I’ve wanted to do that?” Pete asked. “From the moment I saw you.”

And Patrick believed him, believed him, _believed him_. Patrick could feel the heat of his blush, and Pete kissed gently the color high on Patrick’s cheeks, before pulling back again.

“If I get us really quality snacks from the kitchen,” Pete went on, “would you let me kiss you again?”

Patrick rallied for some of the sarcasm that usually never deserted him. He studied Pete’s beautiful face and drawled, “Maybe.”

Pete laughed.


	14. Chapter 14

Pete’s hands were itching for a quill to write poetry. Or itching to touch Patrick. He was doing neither. He was being a gentleman and laying next to Patrick on the gentle slope of the roof by the divination tower, Pete’s usual rooftop haunt. Underneath him, the shingles had been warmed by the day’s sun that was now slowly setting. Not as warm as Patrick had been, ever so briefly, pressed against a wall by Pete. Pete was never going to forget the exact feeling of the warmth of Patrick’s body, he was going to dream in the shape of Patrick’s mouth. He closed his eyes so he could relive it again and again, kissing Patrick, _kissing Patrick_ , kissing Patrick… He let the rhythm of Patrick’s soft breaths beside him count the time of the phrase.

“It’s beautiful up here,” Patrick said softly, breaking the silence between them. “I don’t think I’ve really ever appreciated how beautiful it is here.”

Pete had complicated emotions toward Hogwarts. It had been a long time since he’d thought it was beautiful. Patrick sounded the way he’d been sounding today, achingly sincere, like he kept lifting his heart up on a platter to Pete. _Show me yours, I’ll show you mine_.

“Were you surprised when you got your admission letter?” Pete asked, curious as to how it had gone for Patrick.

“Shocked,” Patrick answered drily.

“You didn’t think you were magical?” asked Pete, and then, “No, of course you didn’t. You don’t think you’re the coolest kid in Gryffindor, either. You never think anything interesting about yourself.”

Patrick turned his head, and Pete, hearing the motion, blinked his eyes open to meet Patrick’s sardonic gaze. “I don’t need to have interesting thoughts about myself, you’ve cornered the market on interesting thoughts about me.”

“Fuck yes,” Pete agreed easily.

Patrick shifted, turning entirely onto his side to face Pete fully, his eyes glittering aquamarine, and Pete watched him back. “The first time I held a wand, and it made all the boxes float up to the ceiling, it was the closest anything’s ever come to feeling the way music feels to me. I always had a song in my head, I never realized that I also had magic, until suddenly it was _right there_ , the word I’d never had for what I was. But I had to be given that word. It would never even have occurred to me that I could be _magic_. The same way it probably never occurred to you that you _wouldn’t_ be magic.”

Pete hmph’d and looked away from Patrick’s unerring gaze, up into the first stars poking out of the sky over their heads. “It probably would have been easier for my parents to understand if I was a Squib than a Slytherin.”

“What?” said Patrick. “Why?”

“Patrick.” Pete sighed and pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes. “I find it very…charming, yes, that you’ve been pretending this whole time not to notice that I’m a Slytherin and you’re a Gryffindor, but come fucking on, you _know_ the other Wentzes are in your house.”

“So?” said Patrick.

“ _So_?” echoed Pete, exasperated, and sat up because this conversation called for sitting up. “Patrick, stop it. Everyone knows about Peter Lewis Kingston Wentz III.”

Patrick looked up at him, shuttered. “That you’re the most popular boy at the school?”

“I don’t think you understand how popularity works,” Pete said, a little cruelly, and Patrick did flinch a bit. “I’m _notorious_ , I’m not popular, I’m just the slow-motion disaster everyone likes to gape at.”

Patrick sat up then, looking irritated. “I don’t know where the fuck you’re getting this idea from—”

“From _reality_. The reality where a nice boy like you should be nowhere near a boy like me.”

“You’re out of your fucking mind,” Patrick said flatly, and without warning pulled Pete in and kissed him.

Pete had kissed Patrick chastely, gently, frightened he might run away. Patrick kissed Pete like he was ready to devour him, no hesitation in his movements, licking his way into Pete’s stunned mouth.

“I don’t care about any of this melodramatic fucking Slytherin _bullshit_ ,” Patrick said fiercely, and then clambered onto Pete’s lap, straddling him and leaving zero doubt about exactly how filthy his intentions were. “So if that’s what you’re talking about here.” Patrick pulled back, his hands tight in Pete’s hair, Pete panting, wet-lipped, wide-eyed. “Shut the fuck up,” Patrick said, and shoved Pete down, back against the roof.

Pete gasped and Patrick swallowed it into his mouth, kissing Pete _sloppy_ , and Pete’s brain stuttered its way to a stop, there was nothing that mattered anywhere in the entire universe except for _this_ , Patrick’s hands and Patrick’s mouth and Patrick’s _voice_ , when Patrick pulled back and said thickly, “Let’s see what nice boys from Gryffindor know how to do,” and reached for Pete’s jeans at the same time that he leaned down and sucked a bruise onto Pete’s neck, viciously possessive about it, and Pete shuddered and gasped meaningfully, “ _Fuck_ ,” because what else could you say?

“What an excellent idea,” Patrick murmured, and then suddenly stilled on top of Pete. He’d undone Pete’s jeans but he hadn’t dipped inside, and now he went entirely still, frozen, hands low on Pete’s stomach, lips hovering above Pete’s collarbone, nose tucked under Pete’s jaw.

Pete, sprawled boneless under Patrick, breaths heaving, throbbing hard for Patrick’s touch, feeling the imprint of his teeth against his skin, thought, _He’s come to his senses_. Pete squeezed his eyes shut and struggled for the words he knew he should say. _It’s okay, you don’t have to, roll off me and let me catch my breath and we’ll pretend this never happened_.

But then Patrick lifted his head up to look down at Pete, and any glib words Pete was formulating died. Patrick looked serious, and intent, and _soft_. So soft, so careful, like Pete was something precious underneath him, like he’d paused because he’d been worried about his rough handling, and Pete wanted to say, _No, fuck me, rough me up, take me as hard as you can_ , but what Pete thought was, _I’m something they forgot to label “fragile,”_ and Patrick looked like he knew what Pete was thinking, was determined not to forget, saw that “fragile” label he’d been trying to deny was missing for years.

“Pete,” Patrick said, and Pete had heard his name countless thousands of times, but he’d never heard it like that, like a wondrous secret, too delicate to be said louder than a whisper.

Patrick said his name like he was talking to the Pete who had cried himself to sleep at Hogwarts every night for the first year, the Pete who had begged and pleaded to be understood, the Pete who this Pete would have said he’d successfully stomped on and stifled years ago, and suddenly Pete couldn’t _breathe_ , he squeezed his eyes shut and sobbed Patrick’s name and tugged him down into a desperate kiss.

Patrick kissed him deeply, the way Pete was craving, and shifted to stretch out solidly over him, his weight pinning him down to the roof, and there were the warm shingles under him and the warm Patrick over him and Pete found himself smiling into Patrick’s kisses, pulling Patrick closer, pulling his t-shirt up and over his head.

Patrick lifted his head up enough to say, “We’re on the roof. We shouldn’t do this on the roof.”

“Wow,” said Pete, and he couldn’t get over the _joy_ with which he was about to say this, “what a goody-two-shoes Gryffindor you are, we Slytherins fuck on the roof _all the time_ ,” and then he threw Patrick’s t-shirt off the roof.

Patrick blinked and looked over his shoulder, his face so comically shocked that Pete burst into laughter. Here he was, Pete Wentz, joking about Gryffindors and Slytherins, Patrick was like the most potent potion in history.

Patrick turned back to him. “What are you—”

Pete put his hands in Patrick’s shaggy copper hair and pulled him down into a kiss, so happy it was barely a kiss at all, so happy it was more like pressing his smile to Patrick’s, delighted to find that they matched.

“You’re not so much a Slytherin,” Patrick mumbled into Pete’s mouth, “as you are an idiot.”

Pete laughed, and then he rolled Patrick over to flip their positions, sliding his hands along all the skin he’d exposed, glancing down at the contrast of him against Patrick, the way he’d fantasized about the very first day.

Patrick tugged at the hem of Pete’s t-shirt to get it off him. “I showed you mine, you show me yours,” Patrick said breathlessly.

Pete grinned and put his arms up over his head, letting Patrick get his shirt off.

And then Patrick bundled it up and tossed it off the roof.

Pete turned to glance toward the edge of the roof, then turned back to Patrick. “Huh. Are we too close to the edge of the roof for this?” he asked.

“We’re too close to the edge of the roof for this, asshole,” Patrick replied.

Pete laughed and leaned down to bite Patrick’s inviting lower lip. 


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, this fic has a playlist! I keep forgetting to tell you! It's [here](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7q08JwWsThRZ4ccHpol3qv).

They ended up in the Room of Requirement, after Pete accio’d their t-shirts back up onto the roof with them.

“Showy,” Patrick said, “but unless you can wingardium leviosa us while we’re making out, I’m not doing any more corrupting of the good clean Slytherin boy here on the roof.”

Pete laughed as he pulled his shirt over his head. It was good laughter. Pete was always laughing, but his laughter now seemed lighter, more relaxed, less theatrical. Patrick had always found Pete’s laughter annoyingly appealing, had more than once thought that his version of Amortentia would be aural and would sound like Pete’s laugh, but now Pete’s laugh was even headier, which Patrick would not have thought possible.

Pete said, “Well, this good clean Slytherin boy is happy to be corrupted in the Room of Requirement, but also I’m totally going to work on perfecting wingardium leviosa sex.”

“Work on it with who?” Patrick asked archly, putting his own shirt back on.

“This filthy Gryffindor boy I know,” Pete grinned at him, and took Patrick’s hand to tug him through the corridors to the Room of Requirement, and then he kissed him as soon as the door closed behind them.

Patrick, hands fisted into Pete’s t-shirt, stumbled backward, sprawling onto a perfectly positioned bed.

“Look at that,” Pete murmured into Patrick’s mouth, “this room thinks we require a bed, Lunchbox.”

“Not a sexy nickname,” Patrick panted. “That is not a sexy nickname.”

“Uh-huh. Your dick seems to like it.” Pete kissed him, shallow, shallow, shallow, he was infuriating.

“That wasn’t sexy, either.”

“Your dick seems to—”

“If you want to get lucky, you should stop talking.”

Pete laughed as Patrick finally coxed him into deepening the kiss, long luxurious strokes of his tongue, Patrick wanted to kiss Pete forever.

“Mmm,” said Pete, pulling back to tug Patrick’s lower lip between his teeth. “This lip of yours is such a slut, it’s always begging me to bite it.”

Patrick freed his lip to say, “Don’t slut-shame my mouth,” and nip at Pete’s bottom lip in retaliation.

“I’m slut- _praising_ your mouth,” Pete protested.

“I mean it, when are you going to stop talking?” asked Patrick, working his way into Pete’s jeans.

“Should I put something in my mouth to shut me up?” Pete asked, and then his breath hitched and he bit a groan into the skin under Patrick’s jaw.

“Oh, wow, have I discovered the secret to shutting Pete Wentz up?” Patrick asked, breathless with the fact that his hand was on Pete’s cock, that Pete’s hips were arching toward Patrick’s strokes.

“Fuck you,” Pete panted into his ear, “keep doing that.”

This was the thing Patrick wished he’d realized earlier about hurried, fumbled, meaningless experimentation: It did nothing to prepare you for when your heart was pounding so fast it was making you dizzy and your nerve endings were burning up from the heat of him and every conscious thought was _make him want to be yours_ and _make him want you to be his_ and a hand on a dick seemed so inadequate in the face of the enormity of that need.

Not that Patrick was doing a bad job with the hand on a dick thing, he knew how to give a hand job, Pete’s breaths were labored in his ear, his voice whooshing out on frantic exhalations, “You… You…” without ever getting the rest of the sentence out.

Patrick suddenly, stupidly, unthinkingly, turned his head to nose against Pete’s cheek and begged, “Kiss me,” which was so humiliating, but then Pete complied immediately, crashing his mouth onto Patrick’s, it was breathless kissing, kisses that were half gasps, and Pete kept mumbling, “Patrick, Patrick,” into Patrick, like he couldn’t help it, and Patrick thought wildly that he was totally going to come untouched if Pete kept saying his name like that.

Then Pete suddenly stopped, suddenly wriggled out of Patrick’s hold, dragging himself down Patrick’s body and opening his jeans and freeing his cock. Patrick, syrupy slow from how close to coming he already was, tried to say _wait_ and ended up saying, “Oh, _fuck_ ,” when Pete locked eyes with his as he went down on him and he came _immediately_ and it was so fucking spectacular that he somehow missed how Pete managed to bring himself off.

He knew Pete had managed it largely because Pete was collapsed on top of him and between them was incredibly, unpleasantly sticky.

Patrick thought, _make him want to be yours_ and _make him want you to be his_ , and felt a vague disappointment in himself, because he had done nothing that was going to accomplish that extraordinary goal. “I should have…” he started foolishly.

Pete interrupted him, croaking, “That was the hottest fucking thing and I’m never moving again. Can you reach my wand for me?”

Patrick reached to snag Pete’s wand out of the back pocket of the jeans he was still half-wearing and pressed it into Pete’s nearest hand.

“Scourgify,” Pete said, and waved his wand haphazardly, cleaning up the mess between them. Then he let the wand drop to the floor and mumbled, “Okay, _now_ I’m never moving again.”

His face was snugged up tight into the curve of Patrick’s neck, his tousled hair tickling against Patrick’s chin. Patrick turned his head and tilted down so he could press his nose against Pete’s hair. It was damp with sweat, and it smelled like Pete. He was literally _smelling Pete’s hair_. He was so fucking _gone_ that a sob of panic welled up in his throat and he had to bite it back.

“Pete,” Patrick whispered, feeling terrifyingly powerless in the face of _the fact of Pete_.

“Hmm?” Pete grunted, so heavy and boneless on top of Patrick, so clearly close to sleep, so—so _there_ , there with _him_.

Patrick thought of his pile of love-notes locked in his nightstand. Patrick thought of the open-mouthed look of astonished wonder Pete had worn when Patrick sang his words for him. Patrick thought of Pete’s grandmother’s record player, whirring next to them as they sat on Pete’s bed and Patrick told him his deepest, most cherished wishes. Patrick thought of Pete asking to kiss him, oh-so-gently, in the kitchen corridor. Patrick thought of Pete.

 _You believe him_ , Patrick reminded himself, and brushed a gentle kiss onto the side of Pete’s head.

“Mmm,” Pete murmured hazily, and kissed Patrick’s shoulder in reaction.

Patrick tipped his head to rest against Pete’s and closed his eyes. This was a tremendously uncomfortable position. They were in complete disarray.

But they were never moving again, and that was okay.


	16. Chapter 16

Pete woke up to find he’d slid off of Patrick and was curled up against his side, and Patrick was sleeping heavily, deep even breaths rising and falling against Pete. Pete lifted his head to look at him, amused that even in sleep he looked stubborn and sullen, a little pouty. He smiled and shifted himself off of Patrick’s arm, which was surely going to ache from being pinned under Pete’s weight, and gently nudged it onto Patrick’s chest, and then he kicked his jeans off the final few inches, and then he settled comfortably against Patrick, fitting his face with a happy hum into the curve of Patrick’s shoulder. He imagined that, from this position, he could practically feel Patrick’s pulse, and he let it lull him into a doze, warm and soft and safe.

And then the Room of Requirement’s alarm went off.

Patrick jolted awake, tensing under Pete, and Pete muttered a curse into Patrick’s skin and then called out to the Room, “Snooze!”

The alarm stopped.

Patrick said, “What the fuck was that?”

“Room of Requirement waking us up. We must be required elsewhere. Don’t worry, I just snoozed it, we can cuddle longer.” Pete snuggled closer.

“We’re not cuddling,” Patrick denied.

They were totally cuddling. 

“Snooze, Lunchbox,” Pete commanded.

“If we’re required elsewhere, shouldn’t we…go elsewhere?”

“Patrick, this is a snooze. It’s five more minutes for you to enjoy how nice it is to be cuddling.”

“We’re not cuddling,” Patrick said again.

Pete snorted and cuddled _aggressively_.

“How did you know to snooze the alarm?” Patrick asked suspiciously.

“All the many sexual assignations for which I’ve used this room before,” Pete answered lazily, mouthing at Patrick’s neck.

“Hmm,” Patrick said, a little grouchily.

Pete grinned, because there was no way he’d just defiled a blushing virgin here. “Yeah, how many Gryffindors have you corrupted with that slutty bottom lip of yours?”

Patrick huffed in obvious annoyance at how right Pete was, and Pete pressed his tongue over Patrick’s leaping pulse, smiling. Here Patrick was insisting no one noticed him and was simultaneously breaking hearts all over Gryffindor Tower, Pete could see it clearly.

Patrick said, “I just didn’t realize the Room of Requirement would be so accommodating of ‘sexual assignations.’”

Pete yawned and stretched. “This school was set up to regard sex in incredibly sexist and heteronormative terms. There are holes in its defenses all over the place.” He propped himself up on his elbow and looked down at Patrick. “Want to find them all with me?” 

“I don’t know,” said Patrick, “my schedule’s pretty full, I’ve got this questionable band I’m in.”

Pete laughed. “Oh, yeah? Tell me more. I bet you’re the hot lead singer, aren’t you?”

“Yeah, because I’ve got this out-of-control bass player who doesn’t understand that his lead singer shouldn’t suffer from stage fright.”

Pete cocked his head. “Do you have stage fright?”

Patrick rolled his eyes. “What do you think I’ve been telling you about not wanting to be the center of attention?”

“I thought you were being, I don’t know, falsely modest.”

“That’s because the only type of modesty you think exists is _false_ modesty. There’s such a thing as just…not wanting all these people looking at you all the time.”

“No,” Pete mused, eyes narrowed as he studied Patrick, thinking. “That’s not it. I don’t think you mind people looking. You wouldn’t have pushed your way into the band if you really wanted to slink unnoticed through life. You wouldn’t be _you_ if that’s what you really wanted.”

“Just because you’ve had my dick in your mouth doesn’t mean you suddenly know everything about me,” Patrick said stiffly.

“You don’t like _seeing_ the people look at you,” Pete concluded, and laid back down next to Patrick thoughtfully. “Hmm. I’ll see what I can do about that for you.”

“Oh, you’re going to cure my lifelong stage fright, are you?” asked Patrick sulkily.

“Where’s my smiley, laughing Patrick?” Pete asked cajolingly, crawling onto Patrick’s chest. “Can we bring him back? I mean, don’t get me wrong, I love asshole Patrick just as equally. Both of my Patricks are good Patricks. Both of my Patricks are best.” Pete straddled Patrick’s chest and poked at the corners of his mouth. “Up,” he said. “These go up for a smile, come on.”

Patrick stared up at him. He had beautiful eyes, green tipping toward hazel close to his pupils, drifting to a purer blue along the edges of his iris. When he’d watched Pete swallow him down, his pupils had been blown wide and his eyes had been just blue, impossibly blue, but now they were back bright green and dark blue all at once. He said suddenly, “Pete,” in a thick tone of voice that made Pete stop teasing him, made him drop his hands away from Patrick’s mouth and lean over him instead. “I…” said Patrick, and then shook his head in a sharp jerk, like he didn’t know what else to say.

Pete was almost never without words. So Pete whispered, “All Patricks are best. All Patricks are mine.”

Patrick blinked up at Pete for another fraught moment of silence, then said hoarsely, “That makes it sound like you just have a thing for guys named Patrick.”

“Oh, I do, I collect you guys,” Pete said. “You’re just a notch in my bedpost. But you’re a really, really pretty one. With the best eyeroll in the history of time.”

Patrick rolled his eyes.

“Oh, see, just like that, do it again, baby, it’s super-hot.”

“Get off me,” Patrick grumbled half-heartedly, and let Pete kiss him through his laughter.

The Room dinged at them and flashed its lights.

“Oh, damn, snooze over,” said Pete, pulling back with a sigh. “It’s probably real-life time.”

“This whole thing is real life,” Patrick said.

Pete made a skeptical sound. “Is it?”

“Well, you didn’t just hallucinate it,” Patrick said.

“Real life is classes and howlers and ten points from Slytherin. You’re a wish I made one day and I didn’t even know it.”

“I’m just a guy named Patrick who plays the drums,” Patrick said.

“And sings,” Pete told him. “Don’t forget that you sing, too.” He dropped a kiss on the tip of Patrick’s nose before rolling off him and pointing his wand. “Accio shirts.” He grabbed their t-shirts as they flew through the air at him. “And you write beautiful songs.”

“We could have just walked two steps and leaned down and picked up our shirts,” Patrick said as Pete handed him his.

“It’s like you’re not even a wizard, Lunchbox,” Pete said, shaking his head at him and pulling his shirt on.

“It’s like I’m not an extremely lazy fucker,” Patrick corrected.

Pete shrugged. “Meet me tomorrow, yeah?”

And Patrick didn’t hesitate for a single second. “When?” he asked. “Where?”

Pete wanted to spend the rest of the weekend just grinning stupidly at Patrick. Maybe the rest of the year. Maybe the rest of his _life_. Maybe he shouldn’t say that because that would probably sound alarming. So instead he said, “I don’t know. Here. Tomorrow.”

Patrick nodded like that was a reasonable plan and Pete kissed him because he couldn’t resist it and the Room of Requirement kept dinging at them and flashing its lights and eventually Pete somehow managed to stop kissing Patrick long enough to walk away from him. Somehow Pete walked long enough that he made it to the Slytherin Dungeon.

The rest of the house was back from Hogsmeade. Pete ducked through the exclamations in the common room to the seventh-year boys’ bedroom, where Cicero was piling chocolate frogs onto Pete’s bed. He said in concern, “Oh, hey, how are you feeling?”

“I feel fucking fantastic,” Pete enthused, before remembering he was supposed to be sick.

Cicero gave him a weird look.

Pete said hastily, “I mean, compared to this morning.”

“Right,” Cicero said slowly.

“I should probably go back to sleep, though,” Pete said, and crawled into his bed around the chocolate frogs. “Thanks for the chocolate.”

“Yeah,” Cicero said, studying him suspiciously. “Sure.”

Pete yawned enormously and pulled the blanket up over his head, and he fully expected to just lay awake for hours, which wasn’t at all unusual for him, except he fell dead asleep and slept late the next day, waking startled from the unaccustomed stretch of rest. And then even more startled when he realized he’d promised to meet Patrick and he wasn’t sure what time it was.

Pete dressed hastily and ran into the Bloody Baron in the deserted common room.

“Where is everyone?” he asked.

“Breakfast,” the Bloody Baron answered in his clipped, disgusted tones.

Oh, good, still early enough that Pete could dash to the owlery to send Patrick a note. _Your lips close to mine, true blue_ , he scrawled, and then ran down to the Great Hall to catch the end of breakfast and hopefully Patrick’s face as the note arrived.

He was greeted with loud concern at the Slytherin table.

“You never sleep for that long,” Cicero said. “You really must be sick.”

Patrick made himself cough a couple of times and hoped he looked convincingly wan and pale, and the first- and second-years told the breathless story of the dragon pox healer, and Pete kept most of his attention on the Gryffindor table across the hall, where Patrick’s owl arrived and Patrick read his note and Pete was certain he could see the blush even from here, the moment when Patrick looked up to meet his eyes from across the hall.

Pete smiled and went back to his breakfast, thinking, _I comb the crowd, and pick you out_ , and reached for his notebook instinctively.

And it wasn’t there.


	17. Chapter 17

Patrick felt like he floated all the way back to Gryffindor Tower. He must have walked, of course, but it was too prosaic to say he walked, after the day he’d just had. _The day he’d just had_. Patrick got to Gryffindor Tower and stood in front of the Fat Lady and almost didn’t tell her the password, because that would end the day he’d just had, and he didn’t ever want the day to end.

“Is there a way to get a day to repeat over and over? To just live the same day for the rest of your life?” he asked the Fat Lady earnestly.

“Sure, but it’s never the day you want,” the Fat Lady replied with a shrug. “You want in the Tower or not?”

“Folderol,” Patrick said, and slunk through the common room and up to his bedroom.

His albums were still spread out over the bed from Pete’s visit. The other sixth-year boys were trading chocolate frog cards by the window, and they said a vague hello to Patrick and he said a vague hello back and sat on his bed to stack his albums back up, thinking happily how the last person on this bed had been _Pete_.

He was in the middle of wondering if he could get Pete to move his record player to the Room of Requirement and teach Patrick the charm to get it to work when the little notebook slid out from between two of the albums on the bed. Patrick blinked at it, recognizing it immediately. He’d watched Pete slide it into his back pocket many times, with a forced casualness, like he was trying through sheer force of will to pretend the notebook didn’t exist.

Patrick hesitated, before picking it up and fanning the pages. The notebook was _crowded_ with Pete’s instantly recognizable handwriting. Patrick closed it and firmly put it aside, refusing to read a single word. Whatever that was, that was _Pete’s_ , and very clearly a thing that Pete tried to keep to himself. Patrick had plenty of Pete’s writing that Pete wanted him to have. He wasn’t going to _steal_ writing from him.

So Patrick left Pete’s notebook on his nightstand and spent the night combing through the lyrics Pete had given him, forming them into shapes that fit melodies. When the rest of the sixth-year boys wanted to go to bed, he crept downstairs into the deserted common room and worked by the light of the dying fire until he fell asleep on top of Pete’s pages.

He woke to them hopelessly crumpled underneath him, as the Tower began to stir around him, and gathered them together and tucked them into the same pocket as his wand. Then he went upstairs and grabbed Pete’s notebook before heading to breakfast.

Pete was late to breakfast, dashing into the Great Hall in obvious breathlessness, his dark hair sticking up all over his head like he hadn’t bothered to comb it. Patrick tried to be surreptitious about watching him, although he was probably super obvious, and anyway he didn’t think Pete was being surreptitious at all, Patrick felt like he was openly staring at him.

The owl surprised Patrick when it showed up. He’d been getting one daily, of course, but for some reason he hadn’t thought to expect one this morning. Maybe because he’d been wooed already, this wasn’t necessary.

But Pete’s handwriting scrawled _Your lips close to mine, true blue_ , and Patrick felt himself blush and looked up to where Pete was still staring at him. Patrick was sure Pete was smiling.

Patrick tucked the note into his pocket and Jenny Jumpermottle, one of the prefects, said, “Who keeps sending you notes?”

Patrick jolted, startled at being addressed, and stammered, “What?”

“You keep getting notes,” Jenny said, studying him thoughtfully. “You’ve gotten a note a day for a while now. And you never used to get any mail at all.”

Patrick was thrown at his habits being so _noticed_. He said eloquently, “Um.”

“Aw,” said Winifred Wentz, the other prefect, “he’s got a secret admirer, leave him alone, Jenny.”

Patrick stared at Winifred, who winked at him as she went back to her porridge.

Patrick had never really thought about Pete’s sister before, beyond the fact that she was a prefect in his house. She looked like Pete, gold-brown eyes and dark hair and that aggressively all-in grin. He’d never stopped to think about it before. And she’d just referenced his secret admirer and winked. Did she know who his secret admirer was? Did it even matter?

Winifred looked up at him and lifted an eyebrow. It was a dubious, arch look, and very much not like anything Pete would wear, Pete who at all times was barreling in with his heart on his sleeve. Patrick often wished he could cover Pete with some sarcastic armor, wincing at how exposed he seemed at all times. Or maybe that’s just how Pete was with Patrick. Maybe Pete was dubious and arch when it came to other people. “You okay?” Winifred asked him.

“Yeah,” he answered, sounding strangled in a way that didn’t sound at all okay.

Winifred’s other eyebrow went up. She continued to look dubious. “Okay,” she said, drawing the word out to emphasize her dubiousness.

Patrick glanced across the hall to the Slytherin table, feeling irresistibly compelled, but Pete wasn’t there, which immediately took precedence over Winifred. “Got to go,” he said, and stood and went to the Room of Requirement, hoping Pete would be there.

He was, standing in the middle of the thoroughly empty room looking distressed, biting at his thumbnail, not something Patrick had ever seen him do before.

“What’s wrong?” Patrick asked in surprise.

“Did you find a notebook?” Pete asked immediately.

“Oh,” Patrick began, reaching into his pocket.

“I know it’s just blank,” Pete went on anxiously, “but it’s really important that I find it.”

Patrick paused with his hand in his pocket, closed around the notebook. “I didn’t find a blank notebook.”

“Fuck,” Pete said, running his hands through his hair and starting to pace. “I’m not sure where I could have left it—”

“I’m sorry you lost the blank one,” Patrick said, pulling the notebook out of his pocket, “but I found this one. Does that help?” He held it out to Pete.

Pete stopped pacing. Pete stared at the notebook Patrick was holding out to him. Pete’s entire face twitched with some emotion Patrick couldn’t interpret.

Patrick, a little bewildered, said, “Don’t worry, I didn’t read any of it. I saw it was your handwriting and I immediately just put it aside. I swear.”

Pete took the notebook out of Patrick’s hand and flipped through it slowly, like he was verifying the pages were still there. Then he slid it into his pocket and croaked, “Okay. Thanks.”

Patrick tipped his head at him. He looked unsettled and guarded, in a way Patrick had never, ever seen Pete be with him. “I swear I didn’t read it,” he said again. “You could give me Veritaserum.”

“I believe you,” Pete said, still sounding choked.

Patrick hesitated, then offered, “Do you want me to help you look for the blank one?”

Pete shook his head slowly.

“Okay.” Patrick hesitated some more. He’d kind of expected to just…start making out as soon as they saw each other. This was catching him off-guard. “I worked with your lyrics. I could sing them to you,” he suggested.

Pete’s eyes brightened at that, much closer to how he usually looked. “Please,” he said, and sat in the squashy armchair that appeared for him, looking eager and expectant.

Patrick took a deep breath and pulled the lyrics out of his pocket. It was stupid to be nervous. He’d offered to do this. And this was Pete, who was embarrassingly impressed when Patrick _breathed_ , for fuck’s sake, never mind when he sang. But still, these were Pete’s words and he wanted to do them justice.

He took another deep breath and stared at the paper as he sang, because watching Pete’s reaction in real time would have been way too much.

When he was done with holding the last note, he would have looked up, except that Pete crashed into him, catching him in a series of frantic kisses. “Hi,” he said between them. “Hi, hi, hi. I’m sorry I was… Hi. That was beautiful, do you want to make out with me for a little while?”

“For a long while,” answered Patrick without meaning to.

Pete’s smile lit him up like he was a lamp Patrick had just turned on, and Patrick was so happy to have that smile back, had missed it so terribly much because he’d been without it for a _few fucking minutes_ , _fuck_ , so anyway, Patrick had zero regrets over the verbal slip.


	18. Chapter 18

Pete was well-acquainted with the inexplicable. It had begun, after all, on his very first day at Hogwarts, with his inexplicable Sorting. Nothing in life really made sense. You just went along faking it the best you could.

So Pete accepted the fact that Patrick could apparently see the writing in Pete’s notebook. What else was he going to do? He also accepted the fact that Patrick claimed not to have read it. He had to trust Patrick on that, and nothing about Patrick’s attitude toward him had changed the least bit, so Pete thought he must be telling the truth. Surely Patrick would have looked at him differently if he’d read all the uncensored misery of Pete’s brain. But instead Patrick kissed him back and arched under the sweep of Pete’s hands and pinned Pete down when Pete would have squirmed away just so he could kiss Pete into shattered pieces, leave him defenseless and begging and that version of Pete that he thought he’d left behind so long ago.

Patrick was inexplicable. Naturally he could read Pete’s notebook. He could do things to Pete that Pete felt should have been impossible. What was one more?

Pete thought, for just a little while, that maybe the spell on the notebook had faltered. But he had tested it on Cicero, asked him to grab it off his bed and read from it one day, casually, as if Pete on the other side of the room was too far away to go over to it and too lazy to accio it, and Cicero had responded, “You must mean a different notebook, bro, this one’s blank,” before tossing it to him. Pete had also asked a first-year to read from it for him, and the first-year had stammered in terror that it was blank and had he failed the test? “Passed it with flying colors, kid,” Pete told him, and replaced the notebook in his pocket, and just accepted that Patrick was something different and unique.

It was easy to accept that Patrick was something different and unique, because, well, he was just so obviously in every aspect of himself different and unique. Music spilled out of him, twisting Pete’s words into melodies Pete would never have dreamed of, singing them golden as they soared out of his mouth, nothing like the stark nonsense Pete handed across to Patrick, ashamed of how unworthy his words were of Patrick’s talent. But Patrick never said that. Patrick took them and frowned thoughtfully at them and brought them back altered into glittering diamonds. It was literal alchemy. Pete was in a magical school and felt like he was seeing magic for the first time when he looked at Patrick.

Pete could not get enough of Patrick. On nights when the band didn’t practice, he and Patrick still met at the Room of Requirement and Pete spent hours trying to get his fill, and by the next night, when it was practice night, he was craving Patrick’s taste so wildly that he always showed up early and trapped him against the door and kissed him, deep and desperate, before Joe and Andy arrived. And then, after Patrick sang him dizzy with desire all practice, Pete fell on him as soon as Joe and Andy left, and could barely wait for the Room to present them with a bed before getting his mouth on Patrick’s cock.

Pete would have felt self-conscious about the level of his obsession if it wasn’t satisfyingly obvious that Patrick felt the same, if Patrick wasn’t waiting for him in the Room most nights, if Patrick didn’t have this way of saying his name like he was astonished by his existence. Patrick had it all wrong, which of them was astonishing, but Pete wasn’t going to turn down that tone of voice when offered to him. Pete wasn’t going to turn down anything about Patrick. Pete was going to take and take and take, greedy and selfish, every ounce a Slytherin.

Everything Pete was doing, he was aware, was dangerous in a heady and addictive way. He was reckless with how little he was in Slytherin Dungeon, which was noteworthy because he used to always be in Slytherin Dungeon. He had no real explanation for where he was instead, couldn’t marshal enough brain power to even bother to come up with one. He was _in love_ , was what he wanted to say. He was crashingly in love. It was all-encompassing. It was swallowing whole who he had been and leaving him someone else entirely and frankly, he kind of liked this new person. He liked himself better than he had in ages. He wrote Patrick lyrics that said things like _Born under a bad sign, you saved my life_ and _Let’s be alone together, we could stay young forever_.

He also wrote Patrick lyrics that said things like _Get me out of my mind, and get you out of those clothes_ , and _I want to see your animal side, let it all out, undress to impress_. Because Patrick blushed so deliciously when he sang them back to Pete.

So yeah, people asked where Pete was spending all his time, wanted to know why he was taking so little interest in the Slytherin band, and Pete prevaricated wildly, barely believable outrageous lies about extra study sessions or assignments in the Forbidden Forest or secret Quidditch spying. People would have gone with him on any of these outings and Pete was constantly fending off companionship, because all he wanted was Patrick.

There were only so many responsibilities he could shun, though.

“I can’t come tomorrow night,” he told Patrick, petting a hand over Patrick’s hip.

Patrick, lazy and sated, stretched toward Pete’s hand, which was lovely, because Patrick had been shy about his body at first, and Pete loved that Patrick would now sprawl naked for him like this and let Pete pet. “How devastating for you, are you allowed to make _me_ come tomorrow night?”

“Ha ha,” said Pete, “I mean literally come.”

Patrick opened one eye and looked at him questioningly, apparently still not following.

“Like, come _here_ ,” Pete said. “I have Quidditch practice. I’ve been the worst Quidditch captain, I have got to, like, run a few practices, go over some new plays.”

“Right.” Patrick rolled onto his back and looked up at him. “Right, right. I forgot you play Quidditch.”

Pete smiled down at him. “I kind of wish I hadn’t reminded you. You could have fallen down with shock when I was announced at the match.”

“Oh, I don’t go to the matches,” Patrick said negligently.

Pete blinked, shocked. “What?”

Patrick shrugged. “I don’t care about Quidditch.”

“You…” Pete shook his head to clear it. “What? Everyone cares about Quidditch! We’re playing Gryffindor! You don’t go to the Gryffindor matches at least?”

“Pete, it’s a weird, barbaric sport where they fling hundred-and-fifty-pound iron balls at children.”

Pete frowned, turning that over in his head. “Okay,” he said, “but. Counterpoint.”

“I can’t wait to hear your counterpoint to _that_ ,” said Patrick flatly.

“Your boyfriend’s really good at it. Don’t you want to support your Quidditch star boyfriend?” Pete batted his eyelashes, leaning heavily on his pretty eyes.

Patrick stared at him for a long moment and then said breathlessly, “Oh, fuck,” and pulled Pete down for a rough kiss. “You’re sure you want me to go?” Patrick gasped.

Pete nodded mutely, diving back into the kiss.

“You had better not get yourself killed,” Patrick said around swipes of Pete’s tongue.

Pete shook his head and clambered onto Patrick. “I am going to beat Gryffindor’s ass. And speaking of Gryffindor ass…”

“That was the worst thing anyone has ever said,” Patrick told him.

“Yeah?” Pete grinned, because Patrick was irresistible when he was pretending not to be charmed. “You loved it.”

“Do something better what that mouth before I kick you out of this bed,” Patrick told him.


	19. Chapter 19

Pete was a glorious, gorgeous, clever person, and Patrick was helplessly dazzled.

Patrick kept waiting for Pete to realized how poorly matched they were, but Pete kept writing lyrics that said the opposite; Pete kept pulling Patrick’s clothes off and going down on his knees; Pete kept snuggling hard against Patrick and talking for _hours_ , murmuring in his ear, until Patrick tackled him and sang to him, quieting him, stilling him, his eyes huge, dark brown and bright gold all at once, watching Patrick like he was a vision he couldn’t bear to lose.

Patrick didn’t get it, but whatever, he was _totally_ fine with it.

And it would be nice to pretend he was fine with it because who wasn’t fine with regular spectacular orgasms? At the hands of someone who not only knew what he was doing but knew what he was doing with _you_ , because he watched you so closely, listened to every hitch of your breath, every groan torn from your throat? Like, who wouldn’t want that? That was fucking awesome.

The problem was that Patrick knew that wasn’t why he counted every minute down until it was time for time with Pete. Patrick knew it was more than sex. Patrick knew it was the animation on Pete’s face, that Patrick never could look away from. Patrick knew it was the way Pete _saw_ him, every iota of him, when Patrick had gotten so used to people’s eyes sliding over him. Patrick knew it was the way Pete cuddled, like if he let go of Patrick he would die. Patrick dared anyone to be confronted with all of Pete Wentz and not fall head-over-heels.

Patrick was unimaginably in love. He literally would never have imagined feeling this way. It was like being physically recalibrated to run on Pete and Pete and Pete instead of oxygen and water and boring food.

Patrick just loved Pete _so much_.

Pete, who had just referred to himself as Patrick’s boyfriend.

Fucking Pete Wentz.

The Room of Requirement was flashing its _go-back-to-your-houses_ warning, and Pete was accio’ing their clothes over to them with lazy flicks of his wand.

“Is it weird that we’re a secret?” Patrick asked suddenly.

“It’s _awesome_ that we’re a secret,” Pete answered immediately. “Do you feel like dealing with everyone watching us cross houses in the Great Hall?”

No, Patrick emphatically did not. Patrick didn’t like the spotlight, and dating Pete Wentz—which he somehow seemed to be doing—was the opposite of lowkey, and that was before factoring their opposing houses into it. “But if I go see you play Quidditch,” said Patrick, “I’ll have to pretend to cheer for Gryffindor.”

“Yes, but I’ll know who your heart is cheering for,” Pete said gleefully, kissing him. And then pulled back, suddenly serious. “Hang on, does it bother you we’re a secret?”

“No.” Patrick shook his head. “This is just ours, it’s no one else’s, I like it like that. But maybe we should at least tell Andy and Joe?”

“Do you think Andy and Joe don’t know?” asked Pete frankly.

Patrick blinked. “You think they know?” That thought hadn’t occurred to him.

Pete shrugged, pulling his shirt over his head. “I don’t think I look at you appropriately, so they either think we’re fucking or they think I’m gross.”

Patrick wrinkled his nose. “Pete.”

Pete pulled Patrick’s shirt over his head for him. “We can talk to them about it if you want.”

“I don’t know, I’m just wondering if this is weird. I’m not upset about it,” he added hastily, “just…are we weird?”

Pete shook his head. “There are so many weirder things in my life than you, Lunchbox, trust me.”

“Starting with that nickname,” said Patrick, “that’s the fucking weirdest thing of all.”

Pete laughed. “You love it. You love every single weird fucking thing about me.” Pete leaned over him on the bed, cocky and sure the way Pete so often was.

Patrick wanted to be as cocky and sure as Pete, just for a second, just for this moment of his life. He swallowed and thought, _I love you a ridiculous amount, seriously, it’s embarrassing_. He said, “I guess I must, I agreed to go see Quidditch for you.”

Pete’s smile softened, the way it sometimes did. Patrick liked to imagine he was the only one who got that soft smile out of Pete. Pete leaned forward and brushed his nose against Patrick’s. “What a great boyfriend I have,” he murmured, “I’m so lucky.”

***

Pete was really good at Quidditch. And he may have been all wrapped up in Patrick and also in their secret band but it was nice to be on a broom, the air was brisk and sharp, and his team ran through the plays Pete had drawn up for them with a swift, sure grace that made Pete think about the way Patrick’s songs sounded when the band played together and hit the harmony just right. Pete, dodging Bludgers and keeping an eye on their Seeker, Delphinia Drew, still caught the Quaffle Cicero passed to him, turning in a fluid motion to knock it through the goalpost.

And then paused to chastise Amabel, who was playing Keeper for the practice.

“I know, I know,” she said before he could say anything, “but you weren’t even _looking_ at me, you were watching Del, I didn’t think there was any way you’d be making a shot at the goal.”

“That’s just how good I am,” said Pete. “And how good we have to assume the Gryffindor team is going to be, okay?”

Cicero snorted. “There’s no way the Gryffindor team is as good as us.”

Pete privately agreed, but Pete’s Quidditch motto was to prepare as if every opponent was the best team ever. Pete’s Slytherin game strategies were vastly more complex than anything they were going to encounter from any of the other houses, and that was just how he liked it.

“Run that _folie a deux_ play again,” Pete said, “I’m going to check on Del.” He tipped his broom upward to join Del up above the game. “No Snitch yet?”

“Not a sign,” said Del, scanning around them.

Pete watched the play unfurl underneath them, flawless and beautiful, and smiled. “Okay, we can call it without a Snitch. Everyone looks great. Tell them we’re all set, I’m going to do one more lap around the field.”

Del nodded and Pete zoomed his way upward, higher, higher, and then barrel-rolling a few dizzying times before sliding back into a straight line and then cutting in a wide curve around the edge of the Quidditch stands below him. It was dark outside the ring of lights around the Quidditch pitch, and Pete drifted out into it, letting the broom under him pick up speed as he zoomed out, out, out, until he drew up, looking beyond the bounds of Hogwarts to Hogsmeade twinkling in the distance, and the darkness of the countryside beyond. You couldn’t fly your way out of Hogwarts; Pete had tried.

He turned his broom back and looked grimly at the castle in front of him. And then the grimness faded slowly as he thought, _Wait. Patrick’s in there._ He could go visit Patrick.

Pete glanced at his watch. They’d had a late practice but he wasn’t sure it was late enough for Patrick to be in bed. So Pete went back to the Quidditch pitch and killed some time by practicing figure-eights around the goalposts. Upside-down. You never knew when you might have to execute some plays while flying upside-down.

Then he went in search of Patrick.

Gryffindor Tower was dark, so Pete assumed he’d waited long enough. He floated carefully past windows until he found the sixth-year boys’ bedroom. Then he took out his wand and whispered, “Alohomora.” The window opened for him, and he nudged it wide and counted his way to Patrick’s bed. Then he took a deep breath and aimed his wand carefully and murmured, “Wingardium leviosa.” Pete was a decent spellcaster but levitation had always been tricky for him. Patrick’s blanket twitched but didn’t lift. Patrick rubbed at his nose and turned over but didn’t wake.

Pete frowned and concentrated harder. “Wingardium leviosa,” he insisted in a low voice, poking his wand toward Patrick.

This time it worked. Patrick’s blanket lifted up into the air, and Pete smiled in satisfaction.

Even more satisfaction when Patrick woke up, sitting straight up in bed and looking toward the open window.

Pete waved, letting the blanket drop back down onto the bed.

Patrick’s eyes widened in shock, and he scrambled out of bed, hurrying to the window. “What are you doing?” he hissed.

“Come out for a fly,” Pete whispered back.

“Are you out of your—”

“Why’s that window open?” came a sleepy voice behind Patrick.

“I don’t know,” Patrick said loudly. “It must be broken.” He lowered his voice and said to Pete, “I’ll meet you at the common room window.” Then he closed the window on him with a glare.

Pete, pleased, flew down to the common room window and waited.

Patrick came into the deserted room, which was still dimly lit by the dying embers in the fireplace, and opened the window for him. “What are you doing?” he asked in bewilderment.

“What does it look like I’m doing?” Pete asked.

“Behaving like a fucking lunatic,” Patrick said.

Pete laughed. “Come for a fly with me.”

“I don’t fly,” Patrick reminded him.

“Yeah, see, I think that’s because nobody taught you properly. Come on, you should try it with someone who knows what they’re doing.”

“How?” Patrick asked, sounding bewildered.

“Get on the broom,” Pete said, knocking against the side of the tower to keep it close.

Patrick shook his head, looking horrified. “It won’t hold me.”

Pete drew his eyebrows together, confused. “Of course it will hold you.”

“ _Both_ of us?” Patrick asked in disbelief.

“Patrick, it’s a broom, not a twig. Do you really think I would risk your life for even a heartbeat?” He held Patrick’s eyes, green-gold in the fading firelight.

Patrick chewed on his gorgeous bottom lip for a moment, obviously worried. “No,” he admitted reluctantly.

Pete leaned on the windowsill, studying Patrick reflectively. Patrick was like this, Pete thought, instinctively cautious, wary of things that Pete never even thought about. Imagine the broom _falling_. It was never going to happen. Imagine people thinking Patrick wasn’t a fantastic singer. That was simply never going to _happen_. And the thing about Patrick, Pete thought, wasn’t that he didn’t want these things, it was that he needed someone to let him know that it was okay to want these things.

It was okay to _want_ , Pete thought. To want more than you had.

“If you don’t want to fly, I won’t make you fly,” remarked Pete thoughtfully. “But I think maybe you want to fly.” 

Patrick studied him back, then walked nervously up to the window and looked down. “If you drop me,” he said, “I’m going to fucking kill you.”

“I’d never drop you, Trick,” Pete promised fervently, and meant it in _so_ many ways. “Not ever.”

Patrick, after another moment of studying Pete, nodded, and Pete smiled and held out his hand.

Patrick clung to it tightly, casting anxious looks down toward the ground as he pulled himself onto the windowsill.

“Don’t look down,” Pete commanded. “Look at me.”

Patrick did, held his gaze as tightly as if he was squeezing it in his fists. Pete held the broom steady and nudged Patrick forward, then glanced down to help Patrick onto the broom properly. When he looked up, Patrick was still looking at him fixedly, looking terrified.

Pete reconsidered this idea. “Okay,” he said, “we don’t have to—”

“No, everyone does this all the time, I can totally do this, I’m a _Gryffindor_ ,” Patrick snapped suddenly. “I’m supposed to be _brave_ , I can get on a fucking _broom_.” And Patrick suddenly dropped his full weight onto the broom.

The broom jerked, because Pete had been caught off-guard by Patrick’s movement. But he steadied it with both hands, while Patrick wrapped his arms around him so tightly Pete could barely breathe, his hands clutching in the hoodie Pete was wearing. He pressed his face against Pete’s back, trembling against him.

Pete whispered, “Okay?” because Patrick seemed the opposite of okay.

But Patrick nodded against him. “You can fly,” he mumbled, without lifting his head up.

Pete flew, more slowly than he’d flown since he was a toddler. He drifted slowly, slowly, away from the tower, letting the broom sink in altitude to try to help Patrick. He waited until they were only a few feet above the ground before saying, “Patrick, it’s safe to open your eyes.”

“It’s okay,” Patrick squeaked. “I don’t need to see.”

“Patrick, open your eyes,” Pete said gently. “Trust me.”

After a moment, Pete felt Patrick turn his head ever so slightly. And then he obviously let out a breath he’d been holding. “Oh, good, we’re close to the ground.” 

“Of course, Trick,” Pete said, cursing how blasé the flying instructor was about just throwing Muggles on brooms dozens of feet in the air.

“I know this is baby stuff,” Patrick said, “and it’s stupid of me to—”

“Patrick, I don’t think that at all,” Pete said, and rested a hand over one of Patrick’s clutching to him, squeezed it gently.

Patrick, after a moment, said, “You can go a little faster,” so Pete did.

The ride was smooth, because Pete knew how to fly a broom, and he could feel Patrick untensing against him.

“Okay, you can go higher,” Patrick said, so Pete did.

Patrick said, after a little silence, “Okay, I get why you do this, this is nice.” He tightened his hold on Pete, which had loosened somewhat, and said, “Go faster and higher.”

So Pete went a little faster and a little higher.

“No, no,” Patrick said, and leaned to talk against Pete’s ear. “Take me for a _ride_ , Wentz.” Patrick nosed behind Pete’s ear, added a scrape of teeth.

Pete shivered and kicked his broom faster and higher and faster and higher, he kind of wanted to take Patrick’s breath away.

“Okay,” Patrick said hastily, “that’s good.”

“Right,” Pete said faintly, slowing down a bit.

Patrick leaned against him, breathing steadily, and said after a moment, “It’s really beautiful from up here. Thanks for this.”

Pete glanced out at the view. “I could teach you how to fly, you know.”

“Why would I want to learn how to fly when my hot boyfriend can do it for me?” asked Patrick, and bit Pete’s earlobe.

“You…” said Pete, closing his eyes, and then forced them back open so he could see where they were going because he was still flying a broom.

“Slow down,” Patrick said, and mouthed at the nape of Pete’s neck. “Get lower.”

“Patrick,” Pete said as he obeyed, and he wasn’t sure if he was protesting or encouraging.

“How good a flyer are you?” asked Patrick into Pete’s skin, hands at the button on Pete’s jeans. 

“Fuck,” said Pete, “I mean…”

“Because,” said Patrick, sliding his hand into Pete’s pants, “everyone says you’re the _best_ flyer. Hmm?”

“I thought you were scared of flying, _fuck_ ,” said Pete, jerking into Patrick’s touch.

He felt the curve of Patrick’s smile against him. “We’re like five feet above the ground right now, in an open field. I bet I can make you come before we hit the Forbidden Forest.”

“ _Patrick_ ,” said Pete helplessly, leaning back to give him a better angle.

“You’ve totally changed my fucking mind about flying,” Patrick said, “they should have given me an outrageously hot boy willing to be groped, this whole thing is super motivational.”

Pete arched his head back against Patrick’s shoulder, shutting his eyes. “Keep talking, keep talking,” he begged, because Patrick’s voice was his favorite thing in the whole entire universe.

“No problem,” Patrick said, sounding amused, and kissed the new bit of Pete’s throat now exposed to him. “I’ll watch where we’re going and shout if we’re about to hit a tree head-on.”

“Yeah, sure, whatever,” Pete said, turning his head to try to catch Patrick in a kiss. “Keep—just keep—”

Patrick kissed him, quick and laughing, before dodging away and saying, low and rough into the air whipping between them, “I will keep doing whatever you want me to do.”

Two things happened simultaneously: Pete came, and Pete lost control of the broom. 


	20. Chapter 20

Patrick was kind of assuming that at some point he was going to end up tumbling to the ground, so he was ready when it happened. The fall was only a few feet, because Pete had been flying low, but it still knocked the breath out of Patrick. Worsened by the fact that somehow Pete landed squarely on top of him.

“Fuck,” Pete croaked into Patrick’s chest.

Patrick grinned up at the night sky over their heads and carded his fingers through Pete’s hair, feeling giddy. He said, “And you told me you weren’t going to come tonight,” tutting dramatically.

Pete mumbled, “You always roll your eyes when I make excellent jokes like that.”

“You never make jokes as excellent as my jokes are,” Patrick said. The giddiness felt extravagant, bursting out of him, rolling off of him in waves, and Patrick seldom felt this way, he didn’t want to lose it, he wanted to cling to it, to hold it close.

“Flying,” Pete said, dragging himself up Patrick’s body with what looked like great effort, “makes you delicious.”

Patrick grinned up at him. “You should see what _you_ look like,” he said, and ruffled Pete’s tangled, windblown hair.

“I’m going to take you flying every night,” Pete promised, and pinned Patrick’s hands playfully by his head.

“Don’t get greedy, that was a one-off,” Patrick lied primly.

“A one-get-me-off,” suggested Pete.

Patrick rolled his eyes.

“Oh, come on, why are you the only one who ever gets to make sex puns?”

“Because I make good sex puns,” said Patrick. “You make terrible sex puns.”

“I am going to go find myself a nice boy,” Pete said. “Know any hot, single Gyffindors?”

“Probably Gryffindors who don’t freak out over flying on a broom,” Patrick said a little ruefully.

Pete looked at him for a moment, then said, “Never mind, I don’t want a nice Gryffindor, I want the Gryffindor who’s going to give me a hand job on my Nimbus 6000.”

“Don’t underestimate yourself,” Patrick said softly, “Gryffindors might line up for that.”

“What if I only want one Gryffindor?” Pete whispered. He ducked his head down to kiss Patrick lightly, a quick brush of his lips. “What if I only want one person in the whole world?”

Patrick’s breath stuttered in his chest. “Pete,” he said, not knowing what else to say.

Pete looked at him with devastating seriousness. “You’re the bravest person I know. Fuck the rest of your fucking house. I’ve never seen you once back down from anything that terrified you, and that’s so fucking brave, Patrick. You were scared to fly, and yet you climbed out of a window and got on the back of a broom and then you fucking _seduced_ me on it.”

“It wasn’t much of a seduction,” Patrick protested breathlessly, because Pete’s eyes were wide and deep and he could never really breathe when Pete looked at him that way.

Pete smiled at him, a smile like a butterfly, like a delicate fluttering thing you wanted to protect from everything harsh. He said, “Patrick,” and kissed him. He said, “I love you.”

Patrick made an involuntary sound like a sob that he couldn’t have explained, because he’d been pretty fucking sure Pete loved him, the word “love” had come up plenty of times before, but Pete had never strung the words together in that order. _I love you_. Patrick wanted to say it back but he couldn’t, couldn’t gather the shape of the words against the mouth Pete was kissing. He tried to say it but it was all gasped mumbles and Pete’s name, the word his brain lit on instinctively these days when all other words failed him, and Pete brought him off relentlessly, pausing only to keep murmuring “I love you” into Patrick’s skin, and then bury him in an onslaught of the perfect grip of his hands and that stupid fucking thing he did with his tongue that always reduced Patrick to nothing but sensation. And Pete’s name. Always just Pete’s name.

Pete cleaned them up with a scourgify charm and Patrick panted, “It turns out I love flying, who knew?”

Pete laughed and settled down on top of Patrick. “I’m never going to be able to fly again, I’m going to have an embarrassing reaction to my broom from now on.”

“Pavlovian,” Patrick said.

“Hmm? Accio Nimbus 6000.” Pete flicked his wand out negligently.

“He’s a Muggle, I don’t know, scientist. Anyway. An involuntary response. It’s Pavlovian.”

“Pav- _love_ ,” said Pete, as his broom zoomed over to them. “I like it.”

Patrick smoothed Pete’s tousled hair down and took a deep breath. “I love you, too.”

“Mmm,” said Pete, a wordless sound that Patrick could nevertheless hear the smile in, loud and clear. Then he lifted his head up. “Want me to fly you home, Trick?”

“What a gentleman,” said Patrick.

Pete grinned, rolling away from Patrick and getting lightly to his feet.

Patrick took a second, taking a breath to slow the wild dizzying tumult inside his chest. 

Pete, already on his broom, looked at him. “We don’t have to fly. There’s a tunnel under the Whomping Willow.”

Patrick sat up and regarded Pete, comfortable on his broom, his toes just brushing the ground to keep it in place. He was wearing a Slytherin hoodie, and his dark hair was sticking up all over his head, and his lips were red from Patrick’s kisses, and his eyes were bright even in the darkness because Pete had the brightest brown eyes Patrick had ever encountered, and he was beautiful and stunning and confident and he loved Patrick.

“I can fly,” Patrick decided, and settled on the broom behind Pete.

“I’ll go slow,” Pete promised, which was fine, but that didn’t change the fact that he had to get up pretty high to get to the Gryffindor common room.

Patrick squeezed his eyes shut and pressed his face into Pete’s back, his arms wrapped tight around Pete’s torso. He would never do this with anyone but Pete, he thought. He was barely able to do it with Pete.

“Okay,” Pete said. “We’re here.”

“Just so you know,” Patrick said in an embarrassing squeak to Pete’s back, “I don’t know if I can make a habit of this.”

“I’d die of jealousy if you did. Don’t you dare climb on the back of anyone else’s broom.”

“There is, like, zero chance of that,” Patrick assured him.

Pete chuckled and squeezed Patrick’s hands, clenched in the front of his hoodie. “I’ve got you,” he whispered. “Off you go.”

Patrick took a shuddering breath and managed to lift his face away from Pete. They were flush up against the open window, Pete’s broom beautifully still, and Patrick was grateful Pete was so good at this. He clambered in through the window in a blind panic, trying not to let himself think about the ground so far below, and ended up sprawling inelegantly onto the floor, which, whatever, was way better than plummeting to his death.

“Okay?” Pete asked, sounding doubtful, like he thought Patrick might have broken a few limbs.

Patrick maybe had a couple of bruises. He gave Pete a thumbs-up, though.

Pete huffed laughter and shook his head at him, then said, “Good night, Lunchbox. See you tomorrow.”

He was gone before Patrick could say anything in reaction, which was fine, because Patrick was just going to smile stupidly at him. Instead, Patrick went and smiled stupidly at his pillow.

In the morning, Pete’s note read, _One look from you, and I’m out of my body, and flying above._

Patrick ignored Winifred and Jenny’s curious gazes and tucked the note in his pocket to put with the others.


	21. Chapter 21

Their songs were so incredibly solid that Pete had stopped thinking about the Yule Ball. Who gave a fuck about the fucking Yule Ball when they had a song like “Grand Theft Autumn” in their arsenal? (Pete named the songs; Patrick rolled his eyes.) That wasn’t a song to be kept in Hogwarts. That was a song to have _out there_.

And Pete didn’t just mean the Wizarding Wireless Network. Pete looked at his grandma’s record player and thought of Patrick’s gorgeous album collection. That’s what he wanted. He wanted their songs on vinyl, he wanted to go into those coveted Muggle record stores and find their music there, he wanted other kids just like them to find their albums and slide them into cherished collections, he wanted the entire population of the planet to know the way Patrick sounded.

Pete had thoughts. Big thoughts. All-caps thoughts. But Pete also had an important match against Gryffindor coming up and Pete was deep into endless Quidditch strategy so Pete put his machinations concerning their songs in the back of his mind. He mulled them over during his bouts of insomnia, imagining Patrick’s voice singing to him in his brain. Patrick who was afraid of flying but soared so much higher than anyone else Pete had ever met. 

“I’m sorry,” Pete said to the band when they were packing up after practice. “I know I’ve been scattered, but—”

“But you have to beat Gryffindor,” said Joe, long-suffering, “we know, we know.”

“I just have to win the Quidditch match,” Pete said. “It’s a coincidence that it’s Patrick’s house.”

“Patrick must feel very torn in his loyalties,” Andy remarked. 

Patrick was busy trying out harmonies to himself by the microphone, strumming his own accompaniment, and not paying attention to their conversation. 

“Patrick doesn’t care about Quidditch,” Pete said, and waited for the gasps of shock he thought ought to accompany that sentence.

Instead Joe managed to do something more shocking, which Pete really admired. He said, “Yeah, but he’s got to care now,” and then called over to Patrick, “Patrick, aren’t you going to go support your boyfriend at the Quidditch match?”

Somehow, even though Patrick was standing in place by the microphone, he managed to trip at Joe’s question.

Pete started laughing, because _of fucking course_ Joe and Andy knew, he wished he’d made a bet with Patrick on that one.

“What boyfriend?” Patrick stammered.

“Do you have more than one?” asked Andy, and looked at Pete. “Does he have more than one?”

“I really hope not,” said Pete. “I’m so bad at dueling. Patrick, you can’t have another boyfriend, whoever it is will humiliate me if we have to duel over you.”

“No one’s dueling over me,” said Patrick petulantly. “How do you know I’m dating Pete?”

Joe and Andy both rolled their eyes.

“Because if the two of you aren’t on the verge of having sex,” Joe drawled sarcastically, “it’s only because you’ve just had sex.”

Patrick flushed beet red, which was just as adorable to Pete as it always was.

“Plus, Pete always looks at you like he wants to eat you up with a spoon, I don’t know how the rest of the school is missing it,” Andy remarked.

“Is the rest of the school missing it?” asked Pete, because he couldn’t tell how much everyone else was picking up on.

“I don’t think they expect Pete Wentz to be dating a random Gryffindor no one’s ever heard of,” Andy told him. “No offense, Patrick.”

“It’s actually kind of hilarious,” Joe said. “I’ve listened to every Hufflepuff debate who it is at the Gryffindor table you’re staring at so intently. A few times they’ve concluded it must be your sister.”

Pete wrinkled his nose. “Ew.”

“That would explain why you ended up in Slytherin,” commented Andy.

“Double ew,” said Pete, “accio pillow,” and the Room of Requirement presented him with a pillow that flew through the air to hit Andy square in the face.

“As long as that’s not one of the pillows the two of you have all your sex on,” Andy said blandly.

“We don’t have sex on—”

Patrick, apparently having hurried over from the microphone, clapped his hand over Pete’s mouth. “Don’t talk about our sex life.” He looked at Joe and Andy. “This is awful. Are we the worst? I wanted to say something—we were going to tell you—we just…didn’t.”

Andy and Joe both looked amused.

“We had bets on when you were going to tell us,” Andy said, “but Joe had to go and ruin it.”

Joe shrugged. “Are you going to wear Slytherin colors to the match on Saturday?”

“I was going to be…neutral,” Patrick said, looking fretful, chewing on that slutty lower lip of his.

“Patrick’s going to wear Gryffindor colors but charm the Bludgers so they don’t hit me,” Pete said.

Patrick looked at Pete. “Can I do that?”

“ _No_ ,” said Pete, “I’m not going to get killed by a Bludger, do you know how good I am at Quidditch? He thinks I’m going to get killed by a Bludger.”

Joe and Andy looked unconcerned at the prospect.

“He’ll be fine,” Joe said.

“Look,” Andy said, “I don’t care what the two of you do not in front of us, kink it up all you want—”

“I need the Room to give me earplugs,” Patrick whispered, looking stricken.

“—but it better not fuck up our Yule Ball chances, because I think our Yule Ball chances are fantastic and I’m sure you’re both great lays but this music is better and I don’t want it jeopardized.”

“I’d never jeopardize music,” said Patrick, scandalized.

Pete smiled. “We’re not fucking anything up. This is the very first thing in my life I’m not going to fuck up.”

Patrick gave him a look, inscrutable to Pete, but Pete just nodded firmly, willing his statement to be true.

***

Patrick, after getting over the initial mortification, was glad Joe and Andy knew about him and Pete, because this meant that now it would make more sense when he asked for his favor.

He approached some Hufflepuffs in the library. There was never any question but that he was going to ask Joe for the help. Andy’s Ravenclaw-ness intimidated Patrick. Patrick felt like Andy understood so many more things than Patrick, innately, without effort. Patrick would struggle through an explanation of a song and he felt like Andy had already reached Patrick’s conclusion for him twenty minutes earlier.

So it was Joe he went for.

“Do you know Joe Trohman?” he asked the chattering knot of Hufflepuffs.

They surveyed him speculatively. He tried not to spontaneously combust from humiliation.

“Sure,” one of them offered eventually.

“Do you think you could ask him to meet Patrick in the library in, like, half an hour or so?” asked Patrick.

“Who’s Patrick?” said another Hufflepuff.

“Me,” said Patrick.

“Oh,” she said, looking unimpressed. “Okay.”

“Hey.” One of the Hufflepuffs leaned over. “You’re a Gryffindor, right?”

“Yeah,” Patrick admitted.

“Do you know which of the Gryffindors is dating Pete Wentz?”

“No,” Patrick stammered. “What? Who says any Gryffindor is dating Pete Wentz?”

The Hufflepuff snorted. “The way he never, ever takes his eyes off the Gryffindor table in the Great Hall, _ever_.”

“It’s not his sister, is it?” asked another Hufflepuff. “Because that rumor’s going around.”

“Pete isn’t dating his _sister_ ,” Patrick said emphatically. “Look, can you just give Joe the message for me?”

The Hufflepuffs managed a collective shrug, and one said, “Yeah, sure, whatever,” and got up, presumably to go find Joe.

Patrick went and sat in a corner of the library and tried to do his arithmancy homework. It did not go well.

Eventually Joe slid into the seat opposite him and said, “Yo, Trick. What’s up?”

Patrick pushed his books away with relief. “I have the hugest favor to ask you.”

“Is this about you and Pete?” Joe asked. “Because honestly, Patrick, Andy and I really don’t care what the two are up to, as long as we’re not in the middle of it, it’s kind of cute. He’s like a Disney princess over you, literal star-eyes.”

Patrick paused, distracted. “No, he’s not. What? I mean, he’s… Do I not look at him like that?” Patrick was suddenly worried he was a bad boyfriend in that respect.

“You frown at him constantly, I think that’s how you show affection.”

Patrick frowned now. “Do you think that’s bad?”

“Patrick, judging from the previously mentioned star-eyes, no, I don’t think Pete thinks that’s a bad thing,” Joe said patiently. “Now what’s this favor?”

“I don’t want to put you in the middle, like you said,” Patrick said. “But it’s not really about Pete, it’s more about… I mean, yeah, okay, it’s about Pete, but this is really a me thing, that I’m hoping you could help me with.”

Joe lifted his eyebrows queryingly. “Spit it out.”

“Can you explain Quidditch to me?” Patrick asked in a rush.

Joe, after a moment, started laughing.

Patrick scowled. “This isn’t funny,” he hissed, as they started attracting looks. “I don’t really know the rules.”

“How do you not know the rules of Quidditch?” Joe asked. “It’s like the only thing people talk about here for fun.”

“I don’t know,” Patrick said, “I didn’t know I was going to end up dating the school’s Quidditch star, did I?”

“Yeah, for a guy who doesn’t like the spotlight, you’ve chosen yourself an interesting boyfriend,” said Joe, apparently endlessly amused by Patrick’s predicament.

“Look,” Patrick said grumpily. “I just want to be able to talk intelligently about what a great match Pete’s going to have on Saturday.”

“Tell him he had a great match and then do some kind of sex thing to distract him.” Joe shrugged. “I bet you can get out of Pete wanting you to talk Quidditch with him.”

“ _Joe_ ,” said Patrick tightly. “You know how you just pointed out that he looks at me with _stars_ in his _eyes_? I am trying to _earn_ that here.”

Joe regarded him for a moment, and then said, “Sorry. I didn’t mean to laugh at you. Tell me what you know.”

“Pete’s a Chaser,” said Patrick, because he may have eavesdropped on the Quidditch conversations in the Gryffindor common room the past few nights. That’s how he knew he was out of his element here, from how quickly those conversations had gotten beyond him. But he had heard them talking about Wentz being a Chaser, and a “fucking good Chaser,” which had made Patrick swell with pride. Gryffindor was despondent about finding a way to beat Pete’s team. “That means he throws the ball through the hoop.”

“The Quaffle,” corrected Joe. “He throws the Quaffle through the hoop. And yes, technically that’s right, although Pete’s also the team captain. His reputation is built on his plays.”

“His plays?”

“The plays he has his teams run. The Slytherins are known for being top-notch flyers who can depend on each other to be in the right place on the pitch at the right time.”

“So Pete’s not just a good flyer,” Patrick reasoned thoughtfully, “he’s the planner.”

“Basically,” said Joe. “Pete’s talent is organization. Exhibit A.” Joe referenced between them.

“That’s why he’s a Slytherin,” Patrick said suddenly.

“Huh?” Joe said.

“He’s a planner. He’s strategic. That’s a Slytherin thing.”

“I guess.” Joe shrugged, evidently not interested in why Pete was a Slytherin. “Anyway. That’s what you should be complimenting Pete on: his plays.”

“But how’m I going to know if his plays are impressive when I don’t know any Quidditch plays?”

“Just say, ‘Pete, great strategy, that play you ran twenty minutes in was particularly awesome,’ and he’ll say, ‘You mean the double turnaround whack-a-mullet?’ and you can nod and say, ‘Yup, awesome.’ And then distract him with a sex thing.”

Patrick frowned. “Is your answer to everything that I should distract him with a sex thing?”

“I feel like Pete is probably much easier to deal with if you can just distract him with a sex thing,” said Joe reasonably.

Patrick sighed. “Moving on. Pete’s a Chaser and he’s getting the Quaffle through the goal posts, fine, that makes sense, but then there are the Bludgers, right?”

“Uh-huh.” Joe nodded.

Patrick said flatly, “Am I the only one at this school who thinks it’s _utterly insane_ that this game has as one of its objectives _throwing iron balls at the players_?”

“Well, I mean, they’re not supposed to get hit by the Bludgers,” Joe pointed out. “If they get hit by the Bludgers, they’re not doing it right.”

“But they _could_ get hit by the Bludgers!”

Joe shrugged. “There are, like, healing charms and stuff.”

“Okay,” said Patrick, annoyed that no one but him seemed to realize how ridiculous this game was. “So there’s a Quaffle, and there are Bludgers of death, and then there’s this little tiny Snitch that someone’s supposed to catch.”

“The Seeker. The Seeker catches the Snitch. Also, maybe don’t call them ‘Bludgers of death’ when you talk to Pete about his Quidditch match.”

“The Seeker catches the Snitch. That’s all the Seeker does, right?”

“Right. They just wait for the Snitch to show up. Once the Snitch shows up, the game’s over.”

“That’s the only thing that ends the game?”

“Well, I think the teams can agree to call the game without the Snitch ever showing up, but that would be a highly unusual thing to do. The game would have to go on for months for that to happen.”

Patrick regarded Joe for a second. “I just want to make another observation.”

“Okay,” Joe agreed.

“Here at this school they have us play a game of _indeterminate length_. This match could theoretically stretch on for _days_. What would that mean for our schoolwork?”

“It would mean awesome things,” Joe said enthusiastically. “Like _no schoolwork_.”

Patrick sighed again. Quidditch made his head hurt. This was why he ordinarily didn’t get involved with Quidditch. “Keep going.”

“So you get a hundred and fifty points for catching the Snitch,” Joe said. “And after the Snitch is caught, the points get awarded and added up and whoever has the most wins.”

Patrick considered. “What happens if there’s a tie?”

Joe looked dumbfounded. “Oh, fuck, I don’t know.”


	22. Chapter 22

Pete didn’t sleep the night before the match because he never did. He tossed and turned for a little while before giving up and going to the owlery to send Patrick’s daily note early. _You’re totally a Golden Snitch: the best catch here_. Then, restless, he went for a fly. The rest of his team was used to his pre-match routine, and he knew they would meet him eventually.

Cicero was the one who flew out to him, bearing a bagel. “You’ve got to eat something,” he said, and tossed it through the air at Pete.

Pete caught it like it was a Snitch and shrugged, tearing a piece off. “Good conditions,” he said. “No sun, no wind, not too hot, not too cold. It’s kind of perfect.”

“Not that it would have mattered,” Cicero said smugly.

“No, but I like not having to fly in the pouring rain,” Pete said. Their match against Hufflepuff in Pete’s sixth year had been a knock-down, drag-out battle to the finish, stretching hours into the night with the Snitch impossible to spot in the driving rain. Pete had been the one to spot it and, even though he wasn’t the Seeker, he’d almost caught it himself and committed a Snitchnip in his eagerness to get the game over with. He’d ended up dragging Slytherin’s Seeker bodily behind him as he’d chased the Snitch down and then practically flung them at it. Pete felt like he hadn’t dried out for days, that fucking hot-air charm was a joke and totally didn’t work.

“You’ve gotten soft in your old age,” Cicero scoffed at him.

“I’m going to throw this bagel at you,” Pete said, tearing off another bite.

“You’ve got an owl,” Cicero replied, nodding to a spot up over Pete’s head.

Pete glanced up, and indeed, there was a tiny owl hovering there, fluttering very hard. When Pete looked at it, it squeaked and almost flew right into his eye. “Okay,” Pete said, ducking away from it.

“Whoa,” Cicero said, zooming up to him. “Maybe Gryffindor sent it to sabotage you.”

“It’s a tiny owl who can’t fly straight,” Pete told him calmly. “Leave it alone. Hold the bagel.” Pete handed the bagel to Cicero and locked his legs tighter around the broom so he could lean up and catch the darting owl in his hands.

The small scrap of paper rolled up and attached to its leg wasn’t addressed.

Which Cicero, spying over his shoulder, noticed. “That’s not addressed.” He looked at the owl. “You’re sure it’s for Pete? It could be a trap, Pete.”

Pete ran his finger over the torn edge of the slip of paper. “It’s not a trap, Cicero.” He let his broom plummet suddenly, to Cicero’s alarmed “Hey!,” and unrolled the paper while in free fall. _Break a leg. Not literally. Whatever you say in Quidditch. Good luck._ Pete smiled and tucked the note into his pocket as he switched the direction of his free fall, zooming up past the descending Cicero.

Cicero grumbled something and then shouted up at him, “You’re such a fucking showoff.”

Pete laughed and flew a figure-eight before coming back down to Cicero and saying, “Let’s get changed.”

“What was the note?” Cicero asked.

Apparently Pete hadn’t distracted him well enough. “Good luck note,” Pete said, and shrugged, and Cicero fortunately dropped it.

Pete didn’t drop anything about it. Pete took Patrick’s note and pinned it inside his Quidditch robes as he pulled them on. It was like taking Patrick into battle with him.

Pete never looked at the crowd when he played. The crowd was irrelevant to him. But as he walked over to shake hands with the Gryffindor team’s captain, he couldn’t help that his eyes slid over to the Gryffindor side of the field. The stands were crowded, because Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff usually threw their support behind Gryffindor, too, but in the sea of scarlet and gold Pete could pick out Patrick, in the very front row of spectators. He was wearing black, which Pete supposed he thought of as neutral but that made him stand out starkly. Pete was too far away to see his face but he imagined he was holding himself anxiously. Pete made a sweeping bow in his direction that the Gryffindor spectators took for mockery and booed.

“Stop taunting the crowd,” the head referee told him.

Pete sighed and decided against explaining, _I was trying to reassure my nervous boyfriend, he thinks I’m going to get hit by a Bludger and die_. He shook hands with the Gryffindor captain, Penny Pennebaker, and said, “Good luck,” sincerely.

He supposed that also seemed mocking, given the way Penny narrowed her eyes at him.

Whatever. He was on a Quidditch pitch, a place he belonged, and he felt like he could feel Patrick’s eyes steadily on him. He mounted his broom and watched the head referee release the Bludgers and Snitch. The Snitch immediately darted away, although he saw Del already trying to follow where it had gone. Del, he thought objectively, was their weak spot. She was only a fourth year, and Pete was confident she was going to become a great Seeker one day, but the Gryffindor Seeker had loads more experience. Pete’s strategy was to rain goals down on the Gryffindor Keeper, because they needed to stay a hundred and sixty points ahead as much as possible.

Pete’s strategy worked like a charm, too. His strategies always did. He’d told his Beaters to ignore the Bludgers at first, in favor of controlling the Quaffle and bearing down on Gryffindor’s goal posts relentlessly. This had the possibility of leaving the team completely exposed to the Bludgers as redirected by Gryffindor’s Beaters, and Pete had warned Del as many times as he could to _watch out_ while he was leaving her undefended. But luckily the Gryffindor Beaters seemed confounded by the Slytherin Beaters flying in the opposite direction of the Bludgers. Apparently suspecting some sort of trap (which, they were right about, as much good as it did them), they turned warily away from the Bludgers to watch the field of play. Pete took center position and let all of his players but Del fan out in perfect formation as he led them down the field, Quaffle firmly in control, and the Gryffindor Keeper had a second to blink in panic before it was through one of her goal posts, and then the Slytherins executed perfect upside-down turns and went back for more.

Pete ducked under a Bludger and shouted to his left, “Amabel!” as a warning, watching Amabel roll over to avoid it. A Gryffindor Chaser going for the Quaffle was hit solidly by it, and Pete winced and thought of how much Patrick hated the Bludgers. At the same time, though, he reached out and tapped the Bludger he was passing toward a Gryffindor Beater who was chasing him down, because, well, that was the _game_.

The Gryffindor Beaters recovered enough to start winging Bludgers at them, so Pete shouted, “Default!” as he somersaulted over a Bludger to push the Quaffle through another goal post. He watched his Beaters react to the command, peeling away to corral the Bludgers back into submission, and Cicero caught the rebound Quaffle and zipped under him to score another goal.

Cicero and Amabel had scoring under control for the moment, so Pete floated up over the field of play, where the Seekers were patrolling for the Snitch, and looked down, surveying the positioning of the Gryffindors on the field. It was a free-for-all mess with no apparent strategy. Really, other teams were _hopeless_.

Pete dropped back into the field, flinging a Bludger out of Amabel’s path as he went.

“Thanks!” she shouted over her shoulder at him, passing to Cicero without looking. The Gryffindor players, distracted by Pete’s return to the game and Amabel’s talking to him, completely ignored Cicero and missed his goal. Amabel winked at Pete and flew off wide, and Pete grinned as the Gryffindors flew past him, scowling.

He listened to the score, doing math in his head, keeping an eye on the circling Seekers up above. _Eighty to twenty. Eighty to thirty. Ninety to thirty. One hundred to thirty. One hundred ten to thirty._ The Gryffindors were overly preoccupied with what he was doing, he realized, clearly trying to catch cues from him. He began flying erratically, zig-zagging in the opposite path of Cicero and Amabel and the Quaffle, scattering the Gryffindors into disarray as they tried to figure out what he was up to.

They thought he was up to way more than he actually was, Pete thought, amused. His entire strategy was _score goals_. _One hundred thirty to forty,_ the score droned around him _. One hundred forty—no, fifty to forty_.

Pete flew in a tight corkscrew around Millicent Moore, one of the Slytherin Beaters, who glanced at him in puzzlement.

“Go Chase for a couple of minutes,” he said. “I’m throwing the other team off.”

Millicent shrugged and flew off to join the field of play. Pete waved cheerfully at one of the Gryffindor Beaters watching him, then whacked a Bludger toward her face. The Beater dodged, looking murderous.

It went on like that, Pete listening to the score and darting between Chasing and Beating. _Two hundred to sixty. Two hundred to seventy._ Pete waited desperately for the one hundred and sixty point lead he needed to breathe properly. In the meantime, he kept Gryffindor off-balance. Once he even went up to Del and switched places with her. 

“You know you can’t catch the Snitch,” she said desperately.

“I won’t touch it,” he promised, “go down and count to thirty and come back.”

She went down looking fretful and Pete flew a couple of lazy barrel rolls past the Gryffindor Seeker, who gaped at him so openly the Snitch could have flown right past without her seeing.

It happened to be that Pete _did_ see the Snitch before either of the Seekers. He had just watched Amabel make the goal that pushed the score to two hundred thirty to eighty, and he was thinking, _That’s one-fifty, we need one more_. He reached out to intercept a pass between the Gryffindor Chasers automatically, tugging the Quaffle in, and then the fucking Snitch buzzed past his ear, hovering for a second just in front of him, its furiously beating wings making the air hum and vibrate in that curious way Snitches did. _One-fifty, we need one more_ , Pete thought again, as the fucking Snitch darted away from him.

Above him, he saw the Gryffindor Seeker dive toward the Snitch. Amabel and Cicero hadn’t noticed the Snitch and were flying in completely the wrong direction. Pete tucked the Quaffle against him and flew straight for the Gryffindor goal, knocking a Gryffindor Beater out of his way to do it, dimly aware of their Seeker chasing down the Snitch, and he had to _had to_ make this goal before the Snitch was caught.

The Bludger came out of nowhere. He caught the motion of it out of the corner of his eye, just as he was trying to figure out how to outwit the Gryffindor Keeper grimly waiting for him, and he did the only thing he could think to do to get out of its way: He slid off his broom. 


	23. Chapter 23

Quidditch was awful. Patrick hated the crowds, hated the stands, hated how people kept saying to him, _You’re coming? You never come to Quidditch_ , like what Patrick did was suddenly the most fucking interesting thing on the planet to everyone. The rest of the Gryffindors kept trying to wrap him in Gryffindor gear, with stealth attacks of scarves around his neck or hats on his head, and really, Patrick didn’t have a good reason not to be in Gryffindor gear, except that he was going to this Quidditch game entirely for Pete and he thought leaving off the Gryffindor gear was only the polite boyfriendly thing to do.

He couldn’t say to everyone else, _I’m dating Slytherin’s star player_ , so instead he just made half-hearted protests, and Hildegard said, “It’s baby steps, Patrick’s coming to Quidditch, we shouldn’t stress him out more.”

And Patrick hated being at Quidditch, it was misery, but Pete…

Pete was _so fucking good_ at Quidditch.

Patrick watched the entire match with his jaw hanging open; he couldn’t help it. Pete was lithe and graceful as he slid through and around the other players, directing the course of play with a casual arrogance Patrick recognized. Pete tried to use it on him and Patrick always set his jaw and fought back against it, but here Pete’s team fell into line, and Patrick had never before considered that… Huh. That was unmistakably hot. Pete, in his fluttering green and silver Quidditch robes, commanding the field, was _impossibly_ hot. And Patrick would have told you he knew just how hot Pete was. It turned out he had no fucking idea.

Pete swept around the Quidditch pitch, never once glancing in Patrick’s direction except for that one time, before the match had begun, and Patrick understood why, because Pete was utterly laser-focused on what was going on in the game, and fuck, that was hot, too. Pete was like that, Patrick knew that, if asked to describe Pete on paper _focused_ and _bossy_ would have been in the top five of his list. _Focused, bossy, stupidly attractive_. That’s probably what Patrick would have written. But there was a sudden, startling difference between being on the receiving end of Pete’s stubborn strategizing and watching it from the outside. Pete wheeled and pivoted and played beautiful Quidditch but he directed even more beautiful Quidditch, and Patrick was dry-mouthed and dizzy and his hands clenched around the railing in front of him and he couldn’t take his eyes off of Pete.

Pete was toying with Gryffindor, Patrick thought, watching him switch his flying levels chaotically. No other player was changing altitude as much as Pete was, and every time he did it it sent the Gryffindor team into a chain reaction of trying to find out where he’d gone and pin him down. There were groans from the Gryffindor side of the stands but Patrick found himself trying to bite back his smile, as Pete tumbled through the Quidditch pitch, scattering frantic Gryffindors in his wake. Pete was literally flying circles around the Gryffindor team.

“He’s such a show-off,” Jenny complained next to him. “He always flies like this. What’s he even doing up there pretending to be a Seeker? It’s a foul on him if he catches the Snitch.”

“He’s always been like that,” Winifred replied with a sigh. “He’s got to be the center of attention.”

Patrick frowned and flickered an annoyed glance at Winifred. _Fucking defend your brother_ , he thought at her furiously. He snapped, “It’s a strategy, and Gryffindor is falling for it. They’re so busy worrying about everything Pete’s doing, they haven’t noticed half the goals being scored against them.”

Winifred and Jenny gave him looks like he’d interrupted them inappropriately.

Whatever. Patrick went back to watching Pete’s obviously incredibly successful strategy.

Patrick didn’t understand Quidditch as much as everyone around him did. He didn’t notice the Snitch. When the Gryffindor Seeker dove suddenly, it was the rest of the crowd that made sudden excited exclamations.

“Oh, fuck,” Jenny squealed next to him. “Sadie’s going to catch the Snitch and Slytherin’s not ahead by enough.”

Patrick’s eyes snapped to Pete, who was driving so furiously toward the Gryffindor goal that Patrick knew he’d had the same thought that Jenny had just voiced. Well, of course he had, Pete had been directing this entire match. Pete sent a Gryffindor spiraling away, barreling right through whoever it was.

And now Jenny squealed at Winifred, “Oh, _fuck_ , is your brother going to _score_?”

Now no one was watching Sadie go for the Snitch, all eyes were on Pete’s zooming drive to the goal, and the murmurs in the crowd suddenly ratcheted up as they became aware of the Bludger heading straight toward Pete. Patrick literally bit his hand to keep from shouting in terror. Pete in the air twitched away from the Bludger, slid down off his broom. The crowd gasped. Patrick squeaked around his hand, as for a moment Pete seemed suspended, one hand clinging to his broom and one hand clutching the Quaffle, while the Bludger whistled through the space Pete had just occupied.

That moment of suspension ended. Gravity kicked in and caught Pete, but not before he twisted and threw the Quaffle through the goal post, right under the nose of the shocked Gryffindor Keeper. And then Pete went into free-fall, and Patrick bit his hand even harder, frozen in horror, watching him plummet, the crowd made a collective exclamation, and then, somehow, Pete’s hand still clinging to his broom dragged it in and under him. The whistle blew for the end of the match just as Pete, a few feet above the ground, regained his broom and kicked it back up to the field of play.

Which he never achieved, because his entire team surrounded him in the air, knocking him back toward the ground in a clamor of celebration.

“Seriously?” Jenny grumbled. “He had to make that fucking goal?”

The Gryffindor side of the stands was silent in disgust, emptying out around Patrick, while Slytherin celebrated wildly on the field. Patrick was a curious combination of faintness caused by abject terror and fevered stress and breathless lust. He stayed exactly where he was, while the Gryffindor side queued up to leave all around him, and watched Pete, sweaty and exuberantly triumphant in the midst of his teammates. He was glowing, irresistible, as compelling as he always was, and Patrick wondered when he’d stopped noticing the way Pete was magnetic.

_And he’s yours_ , Patrick thought, astonished. _He loves you_.

It seemed impossible to Patrick at that moment that the person who had just executed stunning sorcery in the air in front of him was the same person who let Patrick suck bruises onto the inside of his thighs, begging, desperate, gasping _PatrickPatrickPatrick_ , his hands pulling on Patrick’s hair.

And then Pete looked over at him, their eyes meeting across the Quidditch pitch, and Pete smiled, one of those all-in grins that lit up his amber eyes, and Patrick…

Patrick probably should have noticed the way Winifred Wentz looked between the two of them.

But Patrick didn’t.

Patrick looked at Pete and smiled back.


	24. Chapter 24

The party started in the locker room and didn’t stop. Someone—probably Cicero, he was the best at that stuff—had smuggled firewhiskey in and it was free-flowing by the time Pete was out of the shower. Amabel poured it over his head, laughing, and Millicent said, scandalized, “Don’t waste that!,” and Pete giggled and said, “It was one match, we haven’t won the Cup yet.”

“Dude, that was _incredible_ ,” Cicero told him. “I have never seen anyone just fling themselves off their broom like that.”

Amabel pressed firewhiskey into Pete’s hand, as he explained, “Yeah, well, the other option was getting hit by the Bludger and I was recently told how much a Bludger weighs, so that didn’t seem like a good option.”

“That was the prettiest bit of flying,” Amabel enthused. “That was like _ballet_. Did you practice that?”

“That’s where you spend all your time these days, isn’t it?” Cicero accused. “You come out to the Quidditch pitch and practice free-falling.”

“Guilty as charged,” said Pete cheerfully, pleased that he’d gotten fucking lucky enough to be able to pull that move off, because that had been a wild shot in the dark.

“Did you hear how quiet the Gryffindor stands got?” exclaimed Del. “It was like you sucked all the air out of the stadium.”

“They really thought they were going to win,” Millicent said.

“They forgot that you never count out Pete Wentz,” said Cicero proudly. “Hey, drink up, we’ve got more where that came from.” Cicero tapped Pete’s cup.

Pete held his cup up. “Two-forty – two-thirty, baby!”

“Slytherin!” shouted his team, before downing their cups.

It was a slow, rowdy trek back up to the castle. Pete kept waiting for professors to stop them somewhere along the way but the entire population of the house was bouncing around, and maybe not even professors wanted to deal with them at the moment. Someone started singing, and people took up the refrain, cutting in with overlapping songs, a round-robin of merriment, and Pete…kind of missed Patrick. He wished he could send an owl for him. _Come party, I want to drunkenly make out with you in a corner_. But the arrival of a Gryffindor in the middle of the Slytherin celebration would have stopped everything dead.

The shouting was echoing along the stone-clad hallway leading to the dungeon. Pete by that time was being carried, hoisted onto shoulders, and he had to duck his head to avoid hitting it on the swinging lanterns that illuminated the corridor. When they got to the doorway to the Slytherin Dungeon, there was a minor commotion, because, Pete could see, a piece of parchment folded into the rough shape of a bird was banging itself against the Slytherin door, up above their heads. The students who had reached the door first were leaping up, trying to catch it, but it kept eluding their grasp.

There were general shouts of “Pete, catch it!” and Pete lunged for it like it was a Snitch and was startled when it flew directly at him, bopping him in the nose and then fluttering right in front of his face.

It dawned on Pete then, in the middle of the general laughter that the situation was provoking, exactly what this little piece of paper was. He was mildly tipsy on firewhiskey and very, very high on adrenaline and his heart raced in his chest as he seized the little paper bird and opened it. _R of R_ was scrawled inside.

“I’ve got to go,” Pete said immediately, clutching the note in his hand.

The rest of the house looked at him quizzically, as he twisted to get himself down to the ground.

“What?” said Cicero. “Go where? We’re having a celebration.”

“Yup, and I will totally be back for it, don’t drink all the firewhiskey without me.” Pete tucked the note into his pocket.

“But where are you going?” asked Amabel, bewildered.

“I’ll be back,” Pete said, and took off for the Room of Requirement at a fucking sprint.

He was impatient with the stupid rules of the Room, dashing in front of it three times while thinking very hard of _Patrick, Patrick, Patrick_ , and when the door appeared he went through it with such force that he lost his balance and would have tumbled to the floor if Patrick hadn’t caught him and shoved him back up against the door and immediately kissed him, wet and messy, a no-fucking-around-we-are-getting-right-to-the-fucking kiss.

Pete was on such overload, his head was spinning, he was magnificently giddy. “Oh,” he mumbled. “Patrick. I wasn’t sure which of my many illicit lovers might have sent me that note.”

“Shut the fuck up,” Patrick said, dropping to his knees. Patrick really _wasn’t_ fucking around today. He lifted Pete’s shirt up and kissed him low on his belly, just above his jeans, open-mouthed and filthy.

“Wow,” Pete said faintly, winded, staring down at him in shock. “I am making you come to every single Quidditch match after this.”

“You changed out of your Quidditch robes,” Patrick accused, undoing his jeans.

“I won’t change next time,” Pete promised frantically. “Do you have a thing for Quidditch robes? I can totally arrange Quidditch robe roleplay.”

Patrick, instead of getting down to business, sat back, looking up at him reflectively.

He’d gotten Pete’s dick out of his pants and Pete felt a little ridiculous standing there on display, waiting for some attention. He said uncertainly, “Do you want me to go get the Quidditch robes now?”

“You,” Patrick said slowly, thoughtfully, his eyes heavy on Pete, “never shut up.” Patrick’s eyes were dark, the pupils blown wide, all hint of green gone from them.

Pete said, confused, unsure what was happening, “I… Is that a request?”

“You were so hot today on that Quidditch pitch, running the show, issuing your commands and everyone falling all over themselves to obey you. You were so in control, and so clever, and so amazing.”

“Okay,” Pete agreed. Patrick was still speaking carefully, like he was solving some kind of theorem, while Pete was still standing there with a hard-on that would have liked a little bit of _anything_ at that point. “This is a really great list of how hot I am, but—”

“That’s the thing,” Patrick said, in a reverent _eureka_ tone of voice. “You were so hot, and I kept trying to figure out why, because I know you now, it’s not like I don’t know you in that mode. But I just realized why it was so hot.”

Pete lifted his eyebrows and glanced down at his erection. “Did you realize it was so hot because you got my dick out of my jeans?”

“No.” Patrick stood up.

“Oh, dear,” said Pete, concerned, “this is going in the wrong direction.”

Patrick suddenly tugged him forward hard, and Pete stumbled onto the bed that had appeared just where he needed it. He scrambled around, managed to say, “What—” and then Patrick followed him onto the bed, pinned him back onto it, stretched out full-length on him, heavy and not trying to avoid it. Pete, the breath pushed out of him, watched him, wide-eyed.

“I can make you shut up,” Patrick whispered.

Pete opened his mouth…and nothing came out. He didn’t have a single thing to say to that. Patrick was…extremely correct.

“Am I the only person who knows what you’re like when you’re quiet?” Patrick asked. Patrick bit under Pete’s jaw, Pete tipping his head to give him room, his breaths harsh and tearing. “When you’re not in control?” Patrick continued, his voice a low, steady murmur, as he kissed along Pete’s throat, the stubble on his jawline. “When you’re not running the show, when you’re just _here_ and _mine_ and the only words you know are _Patrick_ and _please_?” Patrick kissed the corner of Pete’s mouth. “Am I?’

Pete turned his head to catch Patrick in a fuller, deeper kiss.

“Am I?” Patrick asked again, dodging back from him.

“Patrick,” said Pete. “ _Please_.”

Patrick smiled.


	25. Chapter 25

Pete was warm and heavy against him and Patrick thought he was dozing so he was stroking his hand up the length of Pete’s body, shoulder to hip and back again, waiting for him to wake up so he could tell him how fantastic he’d been in the Quidditch match.

“Your parchment bird charm was adorable,” Pete murmured.

Apparently Pete wasn’t sleeping. And of course he would get the first compliment in.

Patrick huffed in amused exasperation and stroked up and down Pete’s warm skin again, while Pete stretched like a cat. “It’s pretty much the best I can do. I’m not you with the record player.”

“It was cute,” said Pete.

“I didn’t mean to pull you away from your party,” Patrick said.

Pete snorted. “Yes, you did. You meant to do exactly that.”

“Okay,” Patrick allowed. “Maybe. Sorry.”

Pete chuckled. “I’m glad you did. I wanted to invite you to the party very badly. I wish you could come back with me.”

Patrick hesitated, then said, “Do you want me to?” He didn’t want Pete to think that he couldn’t handle being Pete Wentz’s boyfriend in public, because he totally could. Totally.

Pete sighed. “No. It would cause chaos. The house is celebrating, and they deserve to be. I don’t want to steal the thunder by showing up with a Gryffindor in tow. No offense.”

“No, I know,” said Patrick. “I wanted to tell you, though: You were really amazing.”

Pete propped himself up on his elbows so he could look at Patrick properly, delight written all over him. “Yeah?”

“Of course yeah. You were incredible. Your strategy was perfect, and even I could see that you outflew everyone else. I also thought you were going to get yourself fucking _killed_ —”

“I know, I know,” said Pete, at least managing to sound rueful. “When I was falling, I was thinking, Patrick’s not going to like this.”

“You shouldn’t have been thinking about _me_ , you should have been thinking about getting back on your broom!” Patrick protested, horrified.

“It all turned out okay,” Pete said soothingly, and kissed Patrick in a clear attempt to assuage him. “Don’t freak out about it.”

“I don’t want to encourage you,” said Patrick, “never do anything like that again, but all the same. It was fucking impressive.”

Pete laughed, obviously endlessly pleased with himself. “It was pretty flying, right?”

“It was _unbelievable_ flying, I thought I was going to bite my hand off, I was so nervous.”

Pete grinned and picked up Patrick’s nearest hand. “Aww, this hand? But I love this hand. Poor Patrick’s hand.” He kissed the back of it dramatically.

“I know I don’t look at you like I could eat you with a spoon,” Patrick said, because he wanted Pete to know this, “but I could totally eat you with a spoon.”

Pete looked dumbstruck by this, which meant yeah, Patrick should have said this much earlier. “Patrick,” he said, soft and gleeful.

“And you’re really good at Quidditch,” Patrick added, because he might as well get all the praise in at once.

“I am really good at Quidditch,” Pete said, sounding thoughtful. And then he let go of Patrick’s hand, sitting up entirely and looking uncharacteristically serious. “What do you see yourself doing with the rest of your life?”

Patrick blinked. “Wow. That’s a…subject change.”

“It isn’t. Not really. Not to me.” Pete chewed on his bottom lip, which also was unusual for him. Patrick was the one who thought before he spoke, it was never Pete.

“Hey.” Patrick, alarmed, pulled himself up to sit as well. “You okay?”

“This is my last year here,” Pete said.

Patrick knew that. He was trying not to think too much about that. Pete had already made Patrick’s sixth year at Hogwarts a thousand times better than any previous year. Patrick didn’t know how he was going to come back for a seventh year with no Pete.

“So. Like. I’m supposed to be thinking about ‘the future.’” Pete made a face and added dramatic air quotes.

“Right,” Patrick said slowly. “Okay.”

“It’s supposed to be Quidditch.”

“What is? Your future?”

Pete nodded. “Yeah. I’m abysmal at everything else. It’s supposed to be Quidditch.”

“Well.” Patrick considered. “You’re good enough at it, right?”

“Yeah. I am. But I don’t know. I don’t think it’s what I want to do. It wouldn’t be like here, I’d just be, you know, some kind of nameless lackey with, like, a minute of flying time every match, and that’s not Quidditch to me.”

Pete looked distressed, frustrated, and Patrick, watching him, understood why. “No. Of course not. Quidditch is strategy to you. It’s not the flying, you like the _game_ of it, and you’d never get to do that professionally. I mean, not unless you managed, right?”

Pete looked amazed. “ _Yes_ ,” he said. “Yes, that’s exactly it!”

“Maybe you could…work your way up?” Patrick offered, even though he had no idea how professional Quidditch worked and if that was possible.

Pete said, “I want to make music.” And then, “I want to make music _with you_.”

Patrick stared at him, caught entirely by surprise. “What?” he said intelligently.

“I’ve been thinking about it, Patrick. Listen to me.” Pete leaned forward toward Patrick, eager and excited. “We’re good. Don’t you think our songs are good?”

“Yeah,” Patrick said, because it was true. “I mean, yeah. But—”

“I think we could really _be_ something. Like, all of us, you, me, Joe, Andy, an _actual band_. I think we could make music together. What are you doing with the rest of your life?”

“Pete,” said Patrick helplessly. He felt like it was unfair of Pete to start this conversation out of the blue while they were sprawled naked in bed together. He frowned. “We’re not talking about this now.”

“Why not?”

“We’re not even dressed.”

“So, what? You can only talk about the future while you’re dressed?” demanded Pete.

“Well, I think I’d kind of prefer it,” said Patrick, “you’re suddenly asking me impossible questions, what am I doing with the rest of my life, I have no fucking idea, I haven’t even taken any N.E.W.T.s yet—”

“Oh, okay,” Pete retorted, sarcasm practically visible vibrating in the air between them, “let me know if you qualify to be a desk clerk at the Ministry of Magic, I mean, wouldn’t want to turn down _that_ dream job.”

And that _stung_. All of the fucking entitled _assumptions_ underlying that statement, about who Patrick was and what he might qualify for and what he might _want_ out of _life_. “Oh, wow,” said Patrick, reaching for his clothes. “Fuck you.”

“You could accio all of that,” Pete said scathingly.

Patrick snatched up his jeans with his hands and glared at Pete. “Fuck. You,” he said again, and started pulling them on.

“Patrick, you are some kind of fucking musical genius, you’re going to take your _N.E.W.T.s_ and see what gets offered to you?”

“Why not?” Patrick retorted, pulling his shirt over his head. “Why not see? Why not gather all of my options before deciding to throw them all away to follow you around blindly doing whatever you tell me to do?”

“That’s not what I said,” Pete said. 

“Well, you just made fun of me for wanting to take my N.E.W.T.s so it sounded like—”

“I am just _saying_ ,” Pete snapped, “that you would be wasted outside of music.”

“Wasted outside of music?” said Patrick. “Or wasted outside of _you_?” Patrick got out of bed.

“Wow,” said Pete, “ _that’s_ not fair.”

“I can _do things_ , you know.” Patrick stomped over to the door. “I’m not an _idiot_. I wasn’t just, like, waiting around for the great Pete Wentz to _nurture_ me.” 

“I never said you were.” Pete started scrambling to get dressed as well. He reached for his clothes instead of accio’ing them, so Patrick sardonically supposed that this might be a real argument they were having. “Hang on, where are you going? What are we even fighting about?”

“Gee, Pete, I don’t know,” Patrick bit out, annoyed. “I just wanted to tell you that your Quidditch strategy was great, and suddenly I’m realizing that you’ve got a much bigger _life_ strategy in place here and I’m one of the people you want to order around like I’m your Seeker or your goalie or something. My life isn’t a Quidditch play, Pete.”

“I never said it was,” Pete said. “You keep putting words in my mouth. What are you… And what the fuck’s a goalie?”

But Patrick was on a roll now. “You get it in your head that you want a band around you, so you snap your fingers and put a band in place. You get it in your head that I should be a singer and it doesn’t matter that I don’t want to be a singer, you snap your fingers and get yourself a singer. You get it in your head that I have nothing in my life but you and so obviously my entire future plan should be _you_ , so you snap your fingers and—”

“Hang on. Hang the fuck on.” Pete stalked up to him angrily. “I’m so sorry, Patrick,” he spat out sarcastically, “tell me your fucking genius plan for the rest of your life. What was it you were going to do? Because I think you were going to keep your head down and hope no one noticed you for fucking _eternity_. I can’t believe we’re fighting about this right now, of _course_ I have a plan, I have _all_ the plans, Patrick, don’t even pretend you didn’t know this, you know me, we fucking met _because I have plans_.”

“We fucking met because Joe talked about Neurosis in the library,” Patrick spat back, “don’t even rewrite the legend of us so that you can take credit for that, too. You aren’t the big bang of my fucking life.”

“I take the credit because you don’t,” Pete snapped. “You’re terrible at it. You’re bad at doing all the amazing things you should be doing because you’re scared, and you need someone fearless nearby to push you to do what ought to be fucking obvious to you.”

“Right,” Patrick said flatly. “You’re so right, Pete. I would never do anything if it wasn’t for you. It’s a miracle I get myself out of Gryffindor Tower every day, given what a scaredy-cat I am.”

“Well, now that you mention it, the fact that you’re the Gryffindor out of the pair of us doesn’t lead me to have much faith in the Sorting Hat.”

“Really?” retorted Patrick. “Because it was spot-on with you. Get involved with a Slytherin, end up a pawn in some kind of evil plan.”

Pete shoved him, sending Patrick staggering backward. “Fuck you for that,” he said, breathing hard.

Patrick caught his balance and looked at Pete. His hair was still tousled all over his head from Patrick’s hands catching in it and his clothes were rumpled from how haphazardly he’d pulled them on and he was oddly pale, much paler than Patrick had ever seen him. Patrick had the realization that Pete was furious with him. Patrick had the realization that he was also furious with Pete, so it made sense that Pete was furious back, and also it made no sense, because Patrick was the one with reason to be angry and if Pete hadn’t goaded him on Patrick would never have escalated the whole thing to this point.

Patrick couldn’t think of anything that he wanted to say. He didn’t want to say the next hurtful thing. He also didn’t want to apologize. So he turned and stalked out of the room and slammed the door behind him.

Stupid Pete, he thought as he crashed his way back to Gryffindor Tower. If Pete hadn’t suddenly started talking about the rest of their lives, they would never have had this stupid fucking fight. Pete should have just not said such stupid things. Pete, so smug and self-assured, oh, dear, caught between his imagined futures as a Quidditch star or a big-shot musician, whereas Patrick was literally caught between two _worlds_ , an awkward fit in both of them, and Pete was so _casual_ about Patrick’s upcoming essential choice about who to fucking _be_.

_Fuck him_ , Patrick thought wrathfully. Fuck him for being so confident, so fucking _arrogant_ , so sure of everything, so sure of what needed to happen, so sure of what Patrick should do with his own fucking life, so so so--

“Balderdash,” Patrick spat at the Fat Lady, and clambered into the Gryffindor common room.

To find Winifred Wentz standing over him, frowning in disapproval.

“Fuck,” Patrick said, “I am not in the mood,” and went to push past her. The rest of the house was spread out behind her, staring at him, which gave him pause, drawing him up short.

“Where have you been?” Winifred demanded. 

Confused, he turned back to her. “Huh?”

“It’s past curfew,” she said. “Where have you been?”

_Past curfew_. Patrick had been out past curfew almost every night for so long now that he’d forgotten it was even a rule. He’d forgotten to be careful about it. He’d forgotten to try to sneak back into the common room. He’d forgotten to have a fucking cover story.

“Um,” he said. “I was at the library.”

“The library’s not open after curfew,” said Winifred.

“Right,” said Patrick impatiently. “So that’s why I’m back now. See? Couldn’t get into the library, back in the common room. Nothing to worry about. See you.” He turned away from her again.

“Were you with my brother?” Winifred asked.

Patrick stiffened. He felt his hands curl into fists. Yeah, sure, maybe he’d just had a big fight with Pete but that didn’t mean other people were allowed to insult him. All the fight with Pete meant was that he really wasn’t in the mood for Winifred fucking Wentz to start with him.

He turned slowly back to Winifred, and he didn’t even bother to deny it, because Winifred looked knowing, her arms crossed in expectation. He said, “Why?”

“When’s the last time you _weren’t_ out past curfew?” said Winifred.

Patrick said, more quietly, “ _Why_?”

“The other night you were having a conversation at the window of the sixth-floor boys’ bedroom,” Winifred accused.

“So?” said Patrick.

“ _So_?” echoed Winifred, sounding shocked that Patrick wasn’t taking this more seriously.

“Yeah. So what? Who gives a fuck if I’m out past curfew or talking at a fucking _window_? Seriously?”

“Patrick, this isn’t you,” Winifred said.

“How do you know anything about who I am?” demanded Patrick. “Why do people all seem to fucking assume they know who I am?” 

“You never used to run around breaking rules like this,” she pointed out reasonably. “This is what he does. He’s a bad influence and he sends people down the wrong path.” 

Patrick bristled, tightening his fists, staring at her. “He is your _brother_ ,” Patrick seethed at her. “Don’t you think you should have his back?”

“I have _your_ back,” Winifred replied. “Don’t you see? I’m trying to protect you here. These aren’t good choices you’re making.” She said it so sadly and seriously, like Patrick needed to be pitied.

Patrick stared at her incredulously. “Would you listen to yourself? What the fuck do you even think is going on here?”

It was Jenny who piped up then. “We don’t know, but you can never be too careful with a Slytherin.”

And maybe, okay, yes, maybe, _in anger_ , Patrick may have just hurled his own Slytherin insult at Pete, but that was totally different. Patrick scowled at Jenny and looked back at Winifred and reiterated, “He’s your _fucking brother_.”

“I don’t want you to think I’m happy about this,” said Winifred, “but we’ve got to go see McGonagall.”

Patrick blinked. “What the _fuck_ ,” Patrick said in disbelief, “are you _serious_?”

“You are jeopardizing, like, the entire House Cup here,” Jenny informed him. “What happens if you get caught violating all these rules? Did you even think about the rest of Gryffindor?”

Patrick looked from Jenny to the rest of the house, all staring wide-eyed at him. He felt dazed. He couldn’t understand how this day had turned so wrong. He was fighting with Pete and now his entire house suddenly thought he was trying to start some kind of fucking wizarding war.

“Let’s go,” Winifred said, climbing out of the common room.

And Patrick couldn’t think of anything to do but follow her. This all seemed too surreal for him to process. He’d never gone to the Headmistress’s office before. Ever.

“He sends me daily love notes,” Patrick said suddenly. “This is what you’re having a fit about, this is what you think is so dangerous. Your brother who sends me _daily love notes_.” Patrick looked at her, openly quizzical. He didn’t _get_ it.

“I never said he couldn’t be nice,” Winifred responded. “He sends you daily love notes, and also has you breaking all sorts of rules you never would have broken before.”

“It’s fucking curfew, Winifred. It’s not some kind of illegal potions smuggling or something.”

Winifred lifted one of her shoulders in a shrug, as if to say, _You never know what might happen next_.

“It’s like you’ve never even met Pete,” Patrick said harshly.

Winifred stopped walking and looked at him. “I grew up with him. You’re the one who just met him.” And then she turned to the gargoyle they’d stopped in front of and said, “Patriarchy.”

“Huh?” said Patrick, but then the gargoyle moved aside, revealing a staircase. “Oh,” he said, and followed Winifred onto the staircase, because hey, they’d made it this far.

Prof. McGonagall was behind her desk like she’d been expecting them. Winifred didn’t seem to think this was strange. Had Winifred alerted her ahead of time? Patrick frowned at Winifred, as Winifred stepped forward and said politely, “Professor McGonagall, I was hoping that we might talk about—”

But McGonagall was ignoring Winifred, her eyes steadily, inscrutably, on Patrick. “Mr. Stump,” she said mildly. “Not a regular visitor to my office.”

A true statement. Patrick wasn’t sure if a response was called for. He shrugged.

“Professor McGonagall,” Winifred began again, “Patrick’s been—”

“Thanks, Ms. Wentz,” McGonagall said, with a brief smile in her direction. “Mr. Stump and I are going to have a conversation.”

Winifred hesitated.

McGonagall said sharply, “That will be all, Ms. Wentz.”

Winifred turned and fled.

Patrick stood awkwardly and looked at McGonagall while she studied him. And then she said, “You can have a seat, Mr. Stump.”

Patrick sat reluctantly.

McGonagall kept studying him.

Patrick decided he wasn’t going to say anything until he absolutely had to.

“This isn’t like you,” McGonagall said finally, not unkindly. “Why, all of a sudden, are you here in my office?”

Patrick supposed that was his cue to speak. “It’s stupid,” Patrick said petulantly. “Winifred’s totally overreacting.”

“You must be doing something,” McGonagall pointed out. “She’s never overreacted about you before.”

Patrick debated for a moment, then said, “I was out past curfew.” He figured he had to admit to that transgression. “It’s not a big thing. You can just take ten points from Gryffindor and that can be the end of it.”

“I decide the penalties, Mr. Stump,” McGonagall said.

Patrick shut up.

McGonagall, eyes unerringly on him, said, “Why were you out past curfew?”

Patrick shrugged. “Doesn’t matter.”

“I also decide what does and doesn’t matter,” rejoined McGonagall.

Patrick considered how to answer the question.

McGonagall remarked, “Also, before you start talking, maybe you should examine the very real possibility that I already know exactly why you were out past curfew.”

Patrick blushed because Patrick had a stupid tendency to blush. And then Patrick said the only thing it was important to say. “This isn’t Pete’s fault, okay? I know you’re going to say that you get to decide whose fault it was, but it’s not Pete’s fault.”

McGonagall’s eyes flickered past Patrick, and then she said thoughtfully, “Hmm. Maybe we should hear what Mr. Wentz has to say about it.”


	26. Chapter 26

Pete went back to Slytherin Dungeon in a towering temper. He wanted to punch Patrick in his stupid smug face. He was furious Patrick had walked away and deprived him of the pleasure of that. Fucking Patrick with his fucking— _Evil plan_! What was Pete’s fucking evil plan? Making Patrick a fucking _star_? Pete was doing nothing but supporting Patrick and promoting Patrick and worshipping Patrick, when Patrick had been a _nobody_ , and who the fuck did Patrick even think he _was_ , to be so ungrateful as to—as to—as to _whatever_ , Pete didn’t have to do _anything_ for Patrick, Pete could just go off and be—be— _whatever_ , this was all so fucking stupid.

“Pete,” Cicero said to him when he thundered his way into the common room. “What the fuck, man. Where did you go?”

“Nowhere,” Pete barked, swiping the cup of firewhiskey Cicero held out to him and downing it in one gulp.

“Okay,” Cicero said, lifting an eyebrow. “Look. Pete. Is everything okay? Because you’ve been weird for…a while.”

“Is there more firewhiskey?” Pete asked. “There should be more firewhiskey.”

Cicero knit his eyebrows together now. “Pete,” he said.

“This is a celebration, right?” Pete leaped on top of the Slytherin coffee table, letting out a piercing whistle as he did so. The loud party chatter in the room diminished somewhat as people turned to look at him. “People of Slytherin!” Pete proclaimed, flinging his arms wide. “Is this not a fucking _celebration_?”

The house roared affirmation at him.

“Then let’s celebrate!” Pete flung his wand around and confetti burst into the air.

The crowd cheered.

Pete jumped off the coffee table and went in search of more firewhiskey, which he hoped might be in the opposite direction of Cicero.

Amabel was manning the firewhiskey.

“What’s up with you?” Amabel asked him, tipping her head at him like he was a fucking curiosity.

“I don’t know if you know this,” Pete said, giving himself a generous pour, “but we just won a fucking dramatic Quidditch match. I did this thing where I fell through the air for a while in order to score the winning goal.”

Amabel looked unimpressed. “You were being a showoff. You could have scored that goal without the dramatics.”

“I’m throwing you off the team,” Pete said, with a sweeping movement of his hand.

Amabel shook her head at him, quirking a smile. “Asshole.”

“No, no,” Pete said, “don’t try to sweet-talk me now, it’s done, we’re going to find another Chaser.”

“Good luck with that,” Amabel smirked.

“Hey, you know what we should do?” Jezza Joh asked, bouncing over. “We should have the house band play us some songs!”

Pete couldn’t help that he winced, because he’d heard the Slytherin band practice and they were fucking terrible. Also, he was so not interested in listening to music at the moment. He needed to drink a bunch more firewhiskey, enough to forget about fucking _Patrick_ , and then pass out in his bed.

Amabel said, “Oh! Good idea!” and then there was a sudden commotion by the door that drew all their attention.

A pack of third years chorused in alarmed, “There’s someone knocking.”

“Oh, fuck,” Amabel said, and grabbed Pete’s cup out of his hand. She immediately turned and started Vanishing the evidence of the contraband. A few other Slytherins jumped into action to help her.

“Pete!” someone hissed at him. “You’ve got to answer the door.”

“What? Why?” Pete asked. Why couldn’t he just slink away and not _do_ all of this?

Every eye in Slytherin turned to him in disbelief. Like Pete hadn’t spent all these fucking years turning himself into the house leader.

Pete sighed and walked over to the door, where the knocking was frantic. It…didn’t sound like knocking a grown-up would indulge in.

Pete, curious now, opened the door a crack.

There was an entire crowd of Gryffindors in the hallway. Not the whole house but a good dozen or so. A knot of anxious younger ones in the front and some dubious older ones in the back. _Oh, fuck_ , thought Pete, _what the fuck did Patrick say to send his house after me?_

Pete frowned and snapped, “What do you want?” How _dare_ Patrick do this to him, fucking _ambush_ him with these goody-two-shoes Gryffindors.

The younger Gryffindors began exclaiming, “See? See? We told you! That’s him!” to the older Gryffindors.

Pete frowned harder. “What the fuck is going on?”

One of the older Gryffindors—Pete recognized her vaguely but couldn’t place her—said, “They swear up and down you’re going to care about this. I have no idea why but they claim Patrick had you in Gryffindor Tower during the last Hogsmeade trip. Is that true?”

Pete could sense the rest of his house crowding behind him, straining to eavesdrop and see, they were pressed close against him. Pete contemplated lying, just because, well, that was generally his instinct. Patrick was… Patrick was the most vulnerable piece of Pete, Patrick was the power to cut Pete to ribbons, Patrick could say a thing Pete had heard his whole life and make Pete feel it like it was brand new, the first time, a fresh and deep wound, Patrick was… Pete was so very exposed when it came to Patrick, more exposed than he ever let himself be, and yeah, his instinct was to lie.

He didn’t. He said, “Why?”

“Because Patrick’s in trouble,” the Gryffindor continued, “and they seem to think you’d care about that.”

Pete cared. Pete cared _so much_. He straightened and stepped through the door immediately, without thinking. “What do you mean? What kind of trouble?”

“Winifred’s furious because you always have him out past curfew,” one of the younger Gryffindors said.

“ _Winifred_?” Pete echoed, and wasn’t sure he was even surprised.

“I swear, we didn’t tell her he had you in the Tower, she would have _freaked out_ ,” said another of the young Gryffindors.

“We waited to get help until she left to take Patrick to McGonagall’s office,” chirped a third.

“ _What_?” exclaimed Pete, and took off immediately, pushing through the crowd of Gryffindors, racing up the stairs. The stupid fucking moving staircases delayed him and he backtracked unhappily, wishing he had his broom and could just fly up, and then dashing his way down the corridor toward McGonagall’s office he met his fucking sister coming in the opposite direction.

She sighed when she saw him, like she was _resigned_ to having to talk to him.

He drew to a halt in front of her, breathless, and demanded, “How _could_ you?”

“How could _you_ ,” she retorted, “running around here like you own the school and no rules apply to you. I’m not letting Patrick get dragged into whatever you’re up to.”

“What I’m up to!” Pete repeated. “What I’m _up_ to! Why does everyone think this is all a fucking plan? Like I could _plan_ that some random Gryffindor was going to walk into my life and turn it all upside-down like this. I didn’t _plan_ him. This isn’t a _plan_. Patrick is entirely _un_ planned. Why doesn’t anyone see this?” Why didn’t _Patrick_ see this, thought Pete desperately.

He didn’t wait for Winifred’s response, just resumed his dash down the hallway, because it was important for Patrick to know—it was _so important_ for Patrick to _know_ —that he wasn’t a plan, he wasn’t a pawn, of all people why the fuck didn’t Patrick understand this, had Pete not been clear?

Pete gasped out at the gargoyle, “Systemic inequality,” which had been the password the last time he’d been dragged to McGonagall’s office, but nothing happened so it had apparently been changed. “Fuck,” Pete muttered. “Systemic inequality one?” he ventured hopefully. Nothing happened. Pete kicked the fucking gargoyle.

It slid open to reveal the staircase beyond.

“Huh,” said Pete, and then raced up and into the office.

McGonagall was behind her desk and Patrick was in the seat opposite and Pete skidded into the room and panted, “This isn’t Patrick’s fault.”

McGonagall raised her eyebrows at him. “Really? Because he was just saying that it wasn’t _your_ fault.”

Pete looked at Patrick, who scowled at him for a moment, then schooled his face into neutrality.

Pete looked back at McGonagall. “Well, he’s lying,” gasped Pete.

“Of the pair of us,” Patrick inserted drily, “which of us is more likely to be lying?”

Pete frowned at him.

McGonagall said, “Sit down and catch your breath, Mr. Wentz, you don’t get extra points because of your dramatic entrance.”

Pete sat but didn’t bother to catch his breath. “Look,” he said, “the whole thing was my idea, it was _entirely_ my idea. Doesn’t it sound more like me? Right? Total opportunist? Patrick had nothing to do with it, we just roped him into it.”

“And what idea is this?” asked McGonagall blandly.

Pete blinked, and then glanced at Patrick. “Oh,” he realized softly. Patrick hadn’t said anything about the band. “Fuck.”

“Well done,” Patrick muttered at him, and nudged his foot against Pete’s. It could have been a kick but it was more like a _hi_ , Pete thought.

Pete looked back at McGonagall, who was expectant.

“Okay,” Pete said. “This is a good idea, though.”

“‘This,’” McGonagall said, “being your inter-house band entry for the Yule Ball contest.”

Pete blinked again, then looked quizzically at Patrick, who looked just as confused.

“If I had a knut for every secret a student in this school thinks they’re keeping when it is _blatantly obvious_ that there’s a band rehearsal going on in the Room of Requirement several times a week,” McGonagall drawled.

Pete considered this. McGonagall had _known_ …and she hadn’t stopped them. “It’s a good idea, right?” Pete said cautiously.

“It’s not a terrible one,” McGonagall allowed. “If I had my way, I’d do away with more of the inter-house competition we have at this school, it has never led to anything good, but the alumni are so fixated on it.”

“Right,” said Pete slowly, because he didn’t really know what was happening but he thought agreement seemed like a good course of action.

“So. A band with a member from each house. Yes. I like the idea. If you’d come to me and asked me for permission to form this band, I would have given it to you, and you would have saved yourselves all of this current drama, as well as the distasteful conversations I imagine both of you are going to have to have with your houses once I release you. What was gained by the secrecy?”

Pete didn’t know. He just did things secretly _automatically_.

Patrick said, “I didn’t want to cause a big thing.”

“It was going to be a big thing sooner or later,” McGonagall pointed out. “It’s a public contest. Were you going to perform wearing a mask?”

Pete’s lips twitched. “I was maybe going to buy him a hat,” said Pete.

McGonagall didn’t look amused. She said, “Well, congratulations, boys. It’s a big thing now. I wish you luck with your houses.” And then she started shuffling papers around on her desk.

Pete exchanged a glance with Patrick.

“That’s it?” Pete asked.

“Do you want to be punished more?” McGonagall asked, looking at them over the top of her glasses. “I promise you, I think your houses are going to punish you quite enough. I thought I’d make it easier on you by allowing you to tell them that I approve of and support the inter-house band and am not taking any points away for the subterfuge. Would you rather I make it more difficult for you?”

“No, no,” Pete said, and Patrick shook his head energetically.

“I’d appreciate less subterfuge going forward,” McGonagall suggested, with a hard look.

Pete and Patrick both nodded and murmured agreement as they stood.

McGonagall said, “It really is a good idea. Whatever your motivation was, reaching across the houses was a good idea. It might be a bit of rough going for a little while, but all worthwhile things are rough at some point.”

Pete nodded, and he was following Patrick out of the office, and then he tempted fate by turning back and saying, “Professor McGonagall?” He _knew_ he was tempting fate but he couldn’t help it.

Patrick gave him an alarmed look.

McGonagall just looked up from her desk. “Yes?”

“Can I talk to you a for a second?”

McGonagall regarded him with interest, as she said, “Certainly.”

Patrick, wide-eyed, stared at him.

Pete tried to give him a reassuring smile, as he slid back into the seat he’d just vacated, and after a moment Patrick left the office.

McGonagall waited for Pete to say something.

Pete took a deep breath and reached into his pocket and handed his notebook across to McGonagall. “Can you read that?” he asked, as she took it and flipped through it.

“No,” she said, and looked at him curiously. “It’s blank.”

“Right. It’s not. It’s…kind of my diary. It’s full of stuff. It’s charmed.”

“It’s well done,” McGonagall said, handing it back to him.

“It doesn’t work on Patrick,” Pete said.

“What do you mean?” asked McGonagall.

“I mean that Patrick can read it. He flips through it and he can see my handwriting. What does that mean? I don’t understand. The charm holds for everyone else, but Patrick just… He doesn’t even know there _is_ a charm. Have you ever heard of anything like that?”

McGonagall was silent for a moment, giving nothing away, and then she said, “Why is it charmed?”

“What?” Pete asked blankly.

“Why did you charm the notebook to appear blank?”

“Because…” Wasn’t this _obvious_? “Because I didn’t want other people to be able to read it.”

McGonagall gave him a small smile. “You hide yourself so furiously. I’ve been watching you do it for years now. And you’re very good at it. You’re such a frustrating student, because you drip talent and you just use it to hide behind. You barely made it out of Charms, and yet here you sit in my office with a beautifully charmed notebook. All your energy goes to hiding.”

Pete took a shaky breath. He regretted starting this conversation. He resisted the urge to curl up protectively and said, “What does that have to do with the charm malfunctioning when it comes to Patrick?”

“I can’t imagine how many years it’s been since you’ve felt that anyone actually saw you. I don’t think the charm is malfunctioning. I think it might be that you charmed a notebook not to be _seen_. And I think that maybe, for the first time in a very long time, you _are_ being seen. And before you interpret that as a catastrophe, I would just mildly point out to you that he sees you. He literally sees everything you don’t want seen. And he sat here in this office and the first words out of his mouth were to protect _you_. Your charm is working perfectly, Peter. It’s just that you never really wanted to keep out the person who might actually, finally _see_ _you_.”


	27. Chapter 27

Patrick leaned against the wall by the gargoyle guarding McGonagall’s office and worried about Pete. What could Pete possibly have turned back to ask about? And what did Pete think about this entire situation? Patrick fought with him, made a vicious comment about Slytherin, and then immediately showed up in the headmaster’s office. Patrick probably looked like the worst kind of tattletale. He couldn’t stand it. Especially when he wanted nothing more than to hold Pete close and murmur _sorry, sorry, sorry_ , because now that the anger had worn off he could see nothing but the devastated look on Pete’s face when he’d made that last dig at Slytherin, Patrick never wanted to think about that ever again _and yet_ he couldn’t stop thinking about it.

When the gargoyle slid aside, Patrick straightened from the wall and looked anxiously at Pete as he emerged from behind it.

Pete looked a little dazed, and Patrick wanted to know what McGonagall had said to him, and then Pete blinked in surprise and said, “Patrick. You didn’t have to wait for me.”

“Who cares about what I _had_ to do?” Patrick demanded swiftly. “Of course I wasn’t going to—Pete, I’m so sorry. I’m _so sorry_. That Slytherin comment was—I didn’t mean it, I lost my temper and I say horrible things when I lose my temper and I didn’t mean it, I know you don’t have an evil plan, I know you would _never_ —I mean, you’re a planner, I get that, you’re _so much_ a planner, and yes, that’s the Slytherin in you, you’re cunning and strategic and so, so smart, but you’re the farthest thing away from evil I’ve ever met, you’re so much less evil than I am, and I love you so much for all of your scheming, I really do, I’ve never met anyone who made me feel so _safe_ just sitting back and letting them—I trust you so much, I really do trust you _so_ much, but you’re right, about which of us should have been the Gryffindor, I’m not brave and I’m not daring and I am the _opposite_ of fearless and sometimes when you push, like you did, I—I—” Patrick swallowed thickly. Pete’s face was impassive. If Patrick had to describe it, he might have said Pete looked vaguely quizzical. “I’m sorry,” Patrick said again. “I know that hurt you, and I should never have said it, and I swear I was never going to get you in trouble, I’d never dream of it, you have to believe me.” Patrick finally fell silent.

Pete kept looking at him with that vague expression on his face that Patrick couldn’t interpret.

“Say something,” Patrick finally begged impatiently.

Pete opened his mouth, then closed it, and finally he just blurted out, “Patrick,” and then fell into him, clinging hard, snuggling tight like he could snuggle right inside of him.

Pete was trembling a little, and Patrick truly understood why people talked about hearts breaking, because his chest was so tight that surely his heart was jaggedly slicing through his bones. He pulled Pete in, tight, tighter, and pressed his nose into Pete’s hair and closed his eyes and whispered, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

“ _I’m_ sorry,” Pete said shakily into his neck. “I’m so sorry, Patrick. I’m going to do better. I’m going to _be_ better.”

“But you’re great,” Patrick told him. “You’re so great.”

Pete made a sound like a sob against Patrick’s skin. “Thank you so much for thinking that.” He lifted his head up and looked at Patrick, his brown-gold eyes wide and wet. “Thank you _so much_ for thinking that.”

“Don’t,” Patrick said, horrified, brushing his thumbs under Pete’s eyes tenderly. “Please don’t. I don’t want to make you cry. I’m so sorry I said the Slytherin thing, I know you’re not evil, can we pretend I never said that, fuck, Pete, I’m _so sorry_.”

Pete circled his hands lightly around Patrick’s wrists and closed his eyes and took a deep breath. When he opened his eyes again, he looked better, calmer, more collected. He said carefully, “My head moves so fast sometimes. It moves _so fast_. I should be better at not…at not… Keep fighting me on that, Patrick. Fucking take me to task every time I shove you too hard. I swear that I’m going to try to listen. I promise.”

“I know,” Patrick said. “You’re always fifteen steps ahead. I need it slower. It takes me time to… It just takes me time. I’m not like you.”

“I know.” Pete nodded. “I know. I did know that. I just forgot, I—I didn’t plan you. I need you to know that. You know that, right? You weren’t a plan. You…were you. You were you and I didn’t stand a fucking chance. But now that you’re you and I’m me, now you’re _every_ plan. You know? Does that make sense? Is that okay? I don’t know another way to…” Pete trailed off and shrugged helplessly. “I love you. And I don’t know if I know another way to love. Maybe that’s the Slytherin in me, maybe I don’t know a way to—”

“Shut up,” Patrick said softly, and pulled Pete back in against him. “Please shut up. The Slytherin in you is that you plan, the Slytherin in you isn’t the way you _love_. You love like…” Patrick didn’t know how to describe it, the way he had settled into the warmth of Pete’s affection, how reassuring and solid it was, like reaching for a cloud and finding you could actually touch it, that it would hold your weight. Pete looked at him starry-eyed—everyone said. Pete never took his eyes off of him—everyone said. Pete smiled when Patrick needled him, Pete sidled closer when Patrick got prickly, Pete watched and waited and wrote Patrick words that sounded like Patrick’s music, that filled Patrick up the same way music did. What described all of _that_? “You love like a Pete,” Patrick murmured, resting his head against Pete’s.

Pete breathed for a moment, then pulled back with obvious reluctance. “Patrick, I have to be honest with you. No hiding, no Slytherin opportunism, just… I have to be honest.”

Patrick braced himself, cold with dread. “Okay.”

“You’re better than I am at music,” said Pete, very solemnly.

Patrick, after a moment, twitched his lips. But he couldn’t _help_ it. “Okay,” he agreed, trying to keep a straight face, but he couldn’t.

Pete looked affronted. “Are you laughing at me?”

“No,” said Patrick, obviously laughing. “Okay, yes. Sorry. I’m sorry. I don’t mean to laugh at you, I’m sorry.”

“Fuck you,” Pete grumbled, disgruntled, “that was a major confession.”

“Pete,” Patrick tried to say through his laughter. “Sorry. Sorry. But I mean. Did you think I didn’t _know_ that?”

“But you’re in my band,” Pete pointed out, as if Patrick didn’t make sense.

“Because I like the band. I like you and Joe and Andy.”

“Don’t you think you could get a better bassist than me?” Pete asked.

“Yes,” Patrick said. “Undoubtedly. But I don’t want one. I want _you_. You’re lucky I’m up there singing at all, I’d never be able to do it without you right next to me. Pete, you’re not a great bassist, and I’m not a great performer—”

“Patrick,” said Pete, shaking his head.

“—but we are both of us better together than we would be apart. Don’t you think?”

Pete made a face. “I’m definitely better with you. I don’t know about your side of the deal.”

“I do,” Patrick said confidently. “I like my side of the deal. My music is just music, your words give it heart.”

“My words are just words, your music gives them heart.”

“See?” said Patrick, smiling. “Better together than we are apart. And I need your fearlessness. And I need your planning.”

“If you’re sure you want me,” Pete said after a moment, “I can’t make myself fight you on that. I am not one for noble self-sacrifice.”

“Good,” Patrick said. “Those people are fucking irritating.” Patrick nosed against Patrick’s cheek, murmured into his ear, “Be selfish with me. Be greedy.” Patrick tugged on Pete’s earlobe with his teeth. “Beg for me, demand me, take and take and take.”

Pete shuddered against him, his hands flexing against Patrick’s chest. “Yeah,” Pete sighed, “we should do this outside McGonagall’s office, _totally_ , this is going to end well.”

Patrick smiled and whispered into Pete’s skin, “There’s my Pete.”

Pete shuddered again, then took a careful step back. They started walking by wordless agreement, hands curled together.

“I’m sorry my sister’s an asshole,” Pete said.

“I’m sorry your sister’s an asshole, too,” Patrick remarked. “I don’t get it at all.”

“The whole family’s Gryffindor,” said Pete.

“Yeah, I don’t _get_ that,” said Patrick.

“Neither do I,” huffed Pete.

“No, I don’t get why that _matters_ so fucking much. They knew you for a decade before anyone ever said the word ‘Slytherin’ about you. They knew who you are. They think that changed overnight because some hat sat on your head and shouted the wrong thing? They believed a fucking _talking hat_ over you?”

Pete, after a moment, said, “You’re Muggle-born. You wouldn’t get it. You wouldn’t get how much it… Yes, they believe the hat over me. It didn’t matter what I said, the moment it happened it was like I was a stranger to the entire household, they looked at me like—I don’t want to talk about it.”

Pete’s voice was quavering unhappily. Patrick wanted to wring the neck of every Wentz he could find. He said softly, “How did you know your sister dragged me to McGonagall’s office?”

Pete visibly perked up. “Oh, this is a good story. This is _such_ a good story. All of your friends told me!”

“All of my what?”

Pete beamed at him, smug and glorious in it. Patrick even loved his insufferableness, Patrick thought helplessly. “All of your _Gryffindor friends_. You know, the ones you don’t think you have. They were tumbling over themselves to get to the Slytherin Dungeon to tell me to come to your rescue.”

Patrick could feel himself blushing. “That’s not true.”

“It is true. You’ve got a whole loyal Patrick contingent. They’re lovely. And they went and got your boyfriend so I could swoop in and save you.”

“You didn’t swoop in and save me, I had everything handled. And there’s no ‘Patrick contingent,’ you’re being ridiculous.”

“Fine, how do _you_ think I knew Winifred dragged you to McGonagall’s?”

Patrick said readily, “Some kind of listening charm. You’re good at charms.”

“You think I have you charmed so I can listen to everything that happens to you? That’s more likely to you than that a group of Gryffindors came to Slytherin Dungeon to get me?”

“Yes,” said Patrick.

“And you wouldn’t find that an incredibly creepy and invasive thing for me to do to you?” Pete sounded amused.

“ _Incredibly_ creepy and invasive,” Patrick agreed. “If you’re doing it, stop right this instant.”

“I’m not doing it, idiot,” Pete said fondly, and kissed Patrick’s cheek. “I’m not _spying_ on you, Lunchbox. You have people who care about you.”

Patrick, after a moment, looked at Pete and said, “So do you.”


	28. Chapter 28

Pete wanted to walk with Patrick through the halls of Hogwarts forever. He didn’t at all want to go back to the Slytherin Dungeon. McGonagall was right: The cat was out of the bag now and this was going to be a Thing. He was going to have to explain to everyone that he’d decided the Slytherin band was terrible and he’d started his own band. It was going to be fucking unpleasant. And maybe Slytherin House was composed of a bunch of Slytherins, yeah, but they were _friends_ , they weren’t unfeeling assholes. Except for maybe Pete.

“Do you want to go to the Room of Requirement with me?” Pete asked suddenly, breaking the silence between them.

“Pete,” Patrick began, which was frankly the beginning of a _no_ , Pete could hear it coming.

“Or for a fly,” Pete suggested desperately. “Let’s get out of here. I’ll take you for a fly somewhere.”

“We can’t,” Patrick said. “We just came from McGonagall’s office. You think the thing to do next is attract more attention?”

“I think the thing to do next is to avoid going back to our houses,” Pete grumbled unhappily.

“We can’t put it off forever. McGonagall’s right. We were always going to have to tell them.”

“Right. Yes. I know,” said Pete miserably.

“You didn’t have a plan for how you were breaking this news to your house?” Patrick sounded surprised.

Which Pete got. Hadn’t they just had an entire argument about what a planner Pete was? Pete said, “I didn’t plan this, remember? The band was kind of supposed to be just a joke. Like, something fun on the side. I didn’t know there was a secret musical genius with the voice of an angel hiding in Gryffindor.”

“There wasn’t,” Patrick said drily.

“Oh, have you not met him? His name is Patrick, he’s about yea high, he’s got red hair, wears cute glasses—”

“Hey, we’re not still fighting, right?” Patrick interrupted him.

“I hope not,” Pete said. “I can’t be fighting with my house _and_ you.” Pete hesitated. “I didn’t mean to ambush you and we don’t need to talk about the rest of your life.”

“Can we just make it through the Yule Ball? I know this is your last year and the clock is ticking and everything, but I don’t know, I need—I need—I wasn’t thinking past _this_ moment when I found this band who wanted to play my music. I didn’t think ahead to, like, that happening _indefinitely_.”

Of course not, Pete thought. Patrick still didn’t really think he was anything great in the first place. Of course he was doing a terrible job thinking ahead to their inevitable stardom. He said, “It’s cool, Trick. Of course. It’s fine.”

“It’s just that, like, this isn’t my family’s world, and they’ve always kind of been weird about it, and I don’t know, I’ve never really made myself think about what it looks like to… _choose_ …one side or the other.”

“We don’t have to stay in this world,” Pete said, a little perplexed, because he would have thought his lack of satisfaction with the wizarding world was pretty obvious, and also his dreams of stardom were so much bigger than the Wizarding Wireless Network.

But Patrick was clearly surprised. “What?”

“We don’t have to stay in the wizarding world.” Pete shrugged. “I’m not super-attached to it. And I grew up on Muggle music. You’re Muggle-born, and so is Joe. Andy’s so chill he’d probably go along with anything. We can be a Muggle rock band, it’s fine.”

Patrick stopped walking to stare at Pete, so Pete stopped walking to look back.

“You’d stop being a wizard?” Patrick said.

“No,” said Pete. “Obviously not. That’s what I am. I’m a wizard. That’s never going to change. But I’d go live in the Muggle world, absolutely.”

“You can’t even pick up your clothes without using your wand,” Patrick pointed out.

Pete shrugged. “Who’s going to see me pick up my clothes other than you? And you know I’m a wizard, so you’ll just roll your eyes at my wand. And then say ‘Thank you, Pete,’ when I accio all your clothes for you because you’re too lazy to do it yourself.”

Patrick said after a second, “Okay, but what about all the groupies the rock star version of you is inevitably going to have?”

Pete couldn’t help that he smiled. Patrick was so _ridiculous_. “I’ll wave to them from our tour bus windows cheerfully, while I’m scourgifying us up after sex.”

Patrick wrinkled his nose. “Okay, don’t do that.”

“You take my point.” Pete kissed his cheek, pressed his nose against Patrick’s skin to breathe him in. “It’s you.”

“It might not always be,” Patrick whispered uncertainly.

“Want to bet?” Pete whispered back, and kissed Patrick’s cheek again before stepping back and sighing. “Okay. I guess the rest of our lives doesn’t start until we win the Yule Ball competition which we can’t really do if we don’t talk to our houses about our band.”

“Yeah, that’s probably the first hurdle,” Patrick agreed.

“Watch out for my sister. Wilf is a sweet kid, I don’t think he’ll bother you, but Winifred can be vicious. She seems to think I got myself put in Slytherin entirely to steal attention.”

“I’m not worried about your sister,” Patrick said. “She doesn’t understand you _at all_.”

Pete thought of McGonagall, flipping through his notebook, telling him it was a pretty little charm and that Patrick could read his notebook because Patrick _saw him_. Patrick was a person who _saw him_.

“No,” Pete agreed hoarsely. “She doesn’t.”

Patrick studied him, then said after a second, “Are you okay? Really?”

Pete nodded. “Honestly, I’ve never been better. Like. I really haven’t been.”

Patrick, after another moment, nodded. “Okay. See you tomorrow, I suppose.”

“Definitely,” Pete promised.

Pete watched Patrick go, partly to delay going back to Slytherin and partly because, well, how could you not watch Patrick go, it would have been a far greater transgression than anything he’d committed so far not to watch that magnificent ass. Pete resolved to write that in Patrick’s love note the next day, even as Patrick looked quizzically over his shoulder and made a shooing motion, like Pete was a dog who needed to be urged in the right direction.

Pete smiled at him and blew him a kiss and watched him until the staircase Patrick was climbing shifted him out of sight. And then he turned and walked heavily to the Slytherin Dungeon.

The Gryffindors had dispersed, the hallway outside the Dungeon deserted, and Pete stood glumly in front of the Dungeon door and thought of the day seven years ago that he had stood in front of this door for the first time, dreading going inside, dreading the rest of his life rolling out ahead of him. Patrick made him want the rest of his life, in a way Pete had had a hard time believing in for so very long. And no matter what happened in this Dungeon, Pete got to keep Patrick, so Pete was coming out ahead.

But still. Pete had people behind this door who had been lifesavers for him when he’d been a lost, lonely little boy. These were people who thought they were Pete’s friends, and it wasn’t their fault that Pete was just an asshole.

The Bloody Baron drifted into the hallway and regarded Pete dispassionately.

Pete took a deep breath and said, “First place,” just to get away from the Bloody Baron’s gaze.

The door opened, and Pete walked into the common room.

The only two people in it were Cicero and Amabel, who gave him unimpressed looks.

“Where is everyone?” Pete asked, because he’d expected the whole house to be there for this.

“We sent them to bed,” Amabel said. “Do you know what time it is?”

Pete had no idea. “Yeah, but it’s a Quidditch party night.”

“The party kind of died a little after you ran off to rescue a _Gryffindor_ ,” said Cicero. “What the fuck is going on?” He sounded more quizzical than angry, which made Pete feel even worse.

Pete sank into a chair opposite Cicero and Amabel and said, “He’s kind of my boyfriend.”

“Patrick the Gryffindor,” Amabel said flatly. “The little ones told us all about how you had him in the Dungeon during the last Hogwarts trip.”

“Dude, not cool,” Cicero frowned. “You’re not supposed to bring outsiders into the Dungeon and you know that.”

“He wanted to hear the record player,” Pete defended himself.

Cicero rolled his eyes. “What is the big deal about that fucking record player?”

Pete flinched. Honestly, it was no wonder he’d needed to go outside of Slytherin for his band, when his house was composed of people who would say something like that. “You wouldn’t get it, you’re not a music person,” Pete said.

“Not a music _snob_ ,” Cicero sneered.

Pete supposed he couldn’t even deny that. So he said instead, “Patrick’s nice. He just wanted to hear some music. That’s all we did. We listened to one of his albums and we talked and he’s nice and I don’t know why we have this rule about no outsiders anyway, it’s a stupid rule.”

“We have this rule because the rest of this school is assholes to us,” Amabel said sharply, “and you _know_ that, Pete. This is the place where Slytherins can be safe, and they can’t be if you’ve got the enemy hanging around here.”

Pete was suddenly so tired and at some point he’d developed a throbbing headache. He pressed at the bridge of his nose and said wearily, “Patrick’s not the fucking enemy. I’m so tired of being the enemy.”

“Yeah, us, too,” Amabel rejoined, harsh and unamused.

Pete dropped his hand and took a deep breath. “I won’t do it again. Bring him in here, I mean. It was only the one time. I swear.”

“But you’re still going to date him?” asked Cicero incredulously.

“Yeah,” Pete said firmly. “If you met him, you’d understand. He’s not like the other Gryffindors. He doesn’t care about the Slytherin thing.”

“All Gryffindors care about the Slytherin thing, it’s what makes them Gryffindors,” said Amabel.

“Not him, I swear. You know I would have agreed with you, but he’s not like that. He…” _He likes me_ , Pete thought. _He_ loves _me. He_ sees _me._ “He doesn’t care what houses we are.”

Amabel made a dubious noise.

Cicero said, still openly bewildered, “How did you even meet him to talk to him long enough to decide he doesn’t care about you being a Slytherin?”

“Oh, yeah,” said Pete weakly. “This is a funny story.”

Amabel and Cicero gave him looks that said they didn’t think the story was going to be funny.

Pete said as casually as possible, “I kind of have my own band for the Yule Ball contest.”


	29. Chapter 29

It seemed like the whole house was in the common room when Patrick clambered through the portrait, and Patrick really wasn’t in the mood for it. Patrick was worried about how Pete’s conversation with Slytherin was going, and furious with Winifred, and tired from the tremendous adrenaline crash following Quidditch and sex and McGonagall’s office.

Patrick announced to the assembled audience, “I’m dating Pete Wentz and also we have a band we’re entering in the Yule Ball contest. Good night.” He thought maybe it would be that easy.

It wasn’t.

“Hang on,” Winifred said. “Is that all you—”

“Go fuck yourself,” Patrick snapped at her, and heard the murmur of reaction from the rest of the house, as Winifred took a shocked step back.

“Excuse me?” she said, as if Patrick were behaving beyond all predictability and logic.

“He’s your brother,” Patrick bit out. “He is your _fucking brother_. How the fuck could you ever do that to him, no matter what house he’s in? What are you really punishing him for? For staying out past fucking curfew? Why should you fucking _care_? For being good at Quidditch? For being good at _anything_ when he’s supposed to be the family fuck-up? For daring to be happy? For being able to stop worrying for one fucking second about what a terrible person he is? You’re the fucking worst. If you were my sister, I’d want to be put in Slytherin, too.”

Winifred sucked in a breath, looking pale the way Pete had when Patrick had hurled his Slytherin insult, and Patrick thought vaguely that he needed to stop losing his temper. Too vaguely to actually calm down, though.

Winifred seethed at him, “How dare you? When all I wanted to do was make sure you were _safe_ —”

“From _Pete_? Do you hear yourself? What the fuck does he do to you that you would ever for a second think I wasn’t safe with him? This wasn’t about _me_. If I were out past curfew with any other person in this school, you’d find it adorable. You thought it was so cute I had a secret admirer when you didn’t know Pete was the one sending me all the owls.”

“I don’t trust his motivation,” Winifred shot back from between gritted teeth. “Why would he suddenly start dating you?”

“Oh, fuck you, Winifred, he _likes_ me.”

“No offense, Patrick—”

“It’s a little late for that,” Patrick fumed.

“—but you’ve been here six years and he never noticed you before.”

“I sang for him. Your brother is fucking obsessed with music, did you know that? You probably didn’t. You don’t know anything about him. He loves music. He was looking for people to be in a band for the Yule Ball contest. You didn’t really want me in the Gryffindor band, and that’s fine, I’m not upset about it, but Pete was looking for someone and he wanted to play my music and I sang for him and it’s a good band, we’re a good band, and he noticed me because I finally made myself speak up and luckily the person I spoke up to was him. And, by the way, McGonagall thinks it’s a great idea that we have an inter-house band so, sorry, Winifred, looks like I’ll be spending a lot more time with your brother.”

“He’s only using you to win,” Winifred informed him haughtily. “He’s terrible at music, surely you’ve noticed. He’s _using_ you, Patrick, and someday you’re going to wake up and figure that out.”

Patrick counted backward from ten. His temper, he thought, was really much worse than Pete’s, if Pete just, like, _put up_ with all of this. “You know,” Patrick said with forced calmness, achieved with great effort after his counting, “you and Pete are a lot alike.”

Winifred made an indignant noise.

“You’re both stubborn and you’re both fucking self-righteous, convinced you know better than everyone else. The difference is that Pete’s like a fucking bull in a china shop, he just runs you over with his enthusiasm, and when you call him on it it _hurts_ him. All this fucking bullshit your family seems to believe about him _hurts_ him. Whereas I don’t think you even _have_ feelings. He has more feelings in his little finger than you have in your entire body.”

“Shut up!” Winifred raged at him. “Don’t you dare say another word.”

Winifred’s state of fury served to calm Patrick down a little. He’d obviously hit a nerve. Good. He said evenly, “If Pete’s a mistake, he’s mine to make. We’ll see which of us is saying ‘I told you so’ at the end of the year.”

Patrick turned toward the staircase and a murmur of disbelieving conversation started up behind him, and then he realized that he couldn’t leave it like that, not really. He thought of Pete rushing into McGonagall’s office to take the blame for everything and wondered how many schemes Pete might have taken the blame for that he didn’t truly deserve, and whether Pete ever expected anyone to do it for him.

Patrick turned suddenly back and said flatly, “Winifred.”

The common room fell silent. Winifred, who was surrounded by her friends now, looked up at him, where he was a few steps up on the staircase. Everyone looked up at him.

He said, “Don’t hurt him again,” and left it at that.

***

Pete didn’t sleep. Pete didn’t even want to try. Pete didn’t want to do anything. Pete laid in his bed with the covers pulled up over his head and stared into the darkness around him. He wanted his mind to be blank but it was racing. Cicero and Amabel were furious with him, of course. Rightly so. He’d insulted the entire house by creating a rival band, and he’d done it so painfully publicly, and none of them were ever going to forgive him. Seven careful years of cultivating people around him to be a family, and he’d destroyed it all because he was a snob about music. He was the fucking worst and he didn’t deserve any nice thing ever again in his life. Maybe he would just _die_ , he thought. He could just lay in this bed and just cease existing, not have to get up to face this day.

He knew it was morning only because he could hear everyone stirring around him. It was still nice and dark under his blanket and Pete wanted to stay there all day.

But he couldn’t. When he tried to stay in bed all day, Madam Abbott came to see him and drag him out of it and shove potions at him that never worked. Pete fucking hated that. The thought of it was enough to make him drag himself out of bed.

The Dungeon was blessedly deserted, everyone already at breakfast.

Save for the Bloody Baron, who was floating in the common room and looked at Pete with relish. “Everyone is very angry with _you_ ,” he remarked.

The Bloody Baron almost never spoke. How thrilling that he’d decided to speak now, Pete thought morosely. “Yeah, I know,” Pete said. “I started a rival band for the Yule Ball contest.”

The Bloody Baron smiled at him. “Cheer up. Slytherin has a long and proud history of betrayal. You walk among greats.”

_Fuck you_ , Pete thought, but he didn’t even have the energy to say it.

Pete went first to the Room of Requirement, walking past it three times thinking, _I need to hide, I need to hide, I need to hide_. The door wouldn’t open for him and he wanted to cry from frustration. Some shred of pride, or maybe self-preservation, kept him from curling into a helpless ball in the hallway. He pushed himself to the Great Hall, more because of a lack of creative thinking about where to go than anything else.

The Great Hall was buzzing with Sunday morning chatter but the entire Slytherin table fell silent and glared at him as he entered. Pete hesitated, swallowing with trepidation, vaguely ill at the notion of sitting at that table of people who hated him.

And then there was a ripple of movement from the Gryffindor table, visible in the corner of Pete’s eye, and he turned his head as Gryffindors resettled themselves to leave a very obvious opening right next to Patrick.

_Patrick_.

Somehow, in the depth of _everything_ , it hadn’t occurred to Pete to remember that he still had Patrick. Patrick with a space next to him that looked intended for Pete. Pete dragged himself over, his heart beating _Patrick, Patrick, Patrick_ , and sank into the seat next to him and just looked at him for a moment.

Patrick said uncertainly, “You look awful.”

Pete couldn’t even imagine what he looked like. “Can I—” he said, and then couldn’t articulate the rest of the question. He just needed… He just needed a person to look at him and see him and still somehow want him. He needed _Patrick_ to do that.

Patrick looked at him and said, “Have some breakfast.”

Which was wanting him enough to make Pete’s heart unclench a little bit. Patrick still wanted him. He wasn’t entirely alone in the world.

Pete wasn’t hungry but he pulled a plate of eggs over to him just to try to please Patrick. He pushed the fork to and fro between the scrambled eggs and surreptitiously looked down the table toward Winifred, who was steadfastly not looking at him.

Patrick was steadily eating his own breakfast, as if a Slytherin sitting at the Gryffindor table happened every day.

Pete said curiously, “What happened last night?” He would not have predicted this reception at the Gryffindor table.

“I told her to leave you the fuck alone,” Patrick mumbled darkly into his eggs, the tips of his ears pink.

Pete marveled at him in open astonishment, looked back at Winifred more openly now. In his experience, people never said a cross word to Winifred, Winifred was _perfect_. Winifred, her mouth set in a firm, unrelenting line, was scraping at her porridge.

Pete skimmed his eyes up the Gryffindor table until he reached Wilf, Wilf who was young enough to not have internalized the repercussions of the terrible summer after Pete’s Slytherin sorting, when Pete learned how to be Pete and Winifred learned how to be Winifred, and Wilf had just stayed Wilf, the sort who gave Pete a cheerful smile and wave.

Pete tried a smile back but wasn’t sure he pulled it off.

“Patrick told us all about your band.”

Pete forced his attention to the Gryffindor sitting across from him.

“It sounds pretty awesome,” she continued. “We totally can’t wait to hear it.”

“It _is_ pretty awesome,” Pete said, because it _was_ , and that made Pete feel the tiniest bit better. He’d exploded every friendship he had but at least it was in the name of good music, and Pete the music snob had to admit that was in-character for him.

Pete felt capable of taking a bite of his eggs.

“If Slytherin doesn’t want you anymore,” added another Gryffindor, “you can just hang out with us.”

The eggs turned to sawdust in Pete’s mouth. He forced himself to swallow and not choke.

Patrick said, “Silah, Pete doesn’t want to talk about that right now.”

Pete definitely did not want to talk about that. He pushed his plate of eggs away, his nausea newly more strident than ever. It occurred to him for possibly the very first time in his Hogwarts career that, well, he didn’t want to be in Gryffindor. Like, sure, he’d been insisting that was true for years now but he’d secretly always supposed that if he could just be in Gryffindor, and his life hadn’t gone so off-track, things would be better. But now…he didn’t want it. He wanted his house back. He wanted his house to want him. What was he doing? Why was he the worst? Why couldn’t he just go to sleep and wake up in a thousand years and all of this would be fucking _over_?

Patrick was apparently talking to him, Pete could hear his voice dimly, Patrick’s voice that he dreamed of at night but right now there was a rushing sound in his ears and Pete squeezed his eyes shut to keep breathing. The world just seemed _unbearable_ , with so much _happening_ all the time, so much, so much, Pete wanted it to stop, he wanted to go back to bed.

“Pete.” His name in Patrick’s voice cut through the haze. “Pete.” Patrick put a finger on his shoulder, gently, like he thought Pete might shatter if he touched him too hard.

Pete _might_ shatter.

He jerked away from Patrick and mumbled, “Don’t, don’t.”

“Okay,” Patrick said, sounding hurt and confused, because _of fucking course_ Pete was going to end up pushing him away, too.

“Do you want some water?” asked the Gryffindor across from him brightly, like Pete’s nervous breakdown was going to be solved by fucking _hydration_.

Pete said thickly, “I shouldn’t be here.”

“Pete,” said Patrick, like the only thing he could say was Pete’s name, like there was nothing else _to_ say.

“No.” Pete shook his head. “This is nice, you’re too nice, I don’t—It’s fine—I shouldn’t—” Pete stumbled over himself pushing back from the table, he was sure every eye in the Great Hall was on him, he wanted to sink through the floor, he wanted an invisibility cloak, he wanted to fly away forever, he wanted the fucking Room of Requirement to open for him so he wouldn’t have to be here self-destructing spectacularly in front of the entire school.

It was part of that self-destruction that he irresistibly looked at Winifred and she was looking back at him and she would definitely report this to their parents, that Pete was every bit the disaster he had always been, that Pete was getting worse instead of better, that Pete was never going to be fit for polite wizarding society, that Pete had finally been invited to sit at the Gryffindor table and had fucked the whole thing up.

Patrick leaned into Pete’s field of vision, cutting Winifred out, and Pete blinked, startled, looking at him. Patrick was unbearably beautiful, those blue-green-yellow eyes of his, that fluttery fly-away red-gold hair that Pete liked to mess up because Patrick was always sighing tragically about it. His beautiful lips that sang Pete’s words and sucked Pete’s cock carefully formed the shape of Pete’s name.

“Pete,” Patrick said. He was murmuring, soft and low, just for Pete’s ears. “Sit. Breathe. It’s okay.”

It _wasn’t_ okay. Pete was desperate for Patrick to understand how shakily Pete was holding things together, how fucking much he needed to be anywhere but _in this fucking room_. He trembled violently with the effort of not fleeing, with the effort of not breaking down into sobs, with the effort of being up and out of bed and here for everyone to gape at.

And Patrick, his eyes locked on Pete’s, suddenly said very loudly, “Pete, I was wondering if you would like to take me for a flying lesson.”

Pete didn’t know what to say to that. He stared at Patrick.

Patrick stood showily, keeping up his loud narration. “I know you say I’m terrible at it and I probably won’t get any better but it’s such a great idea that we should take advantage of the beautiful weather today and get some flying in.” Patrick’s hand closed gently but firmly around Pete’s elbow, nudging him forward. “Oh, right, yeah, of course,” Patrick continued, as if Pete had said something, as if Pete was capable of saying any-fucking-thing at the moment. “I’ve totally been practicing those cork tree maneuvers you taught me.”

They were out of the Great Hall now, heading toward the front doors, and Patrick stopped talking loudly. He leaned close to Pete’s ear and spoke into it. “You’re okay. Breathe. You’re okay.”

Pete shook his head desperately, tears stinging his eyes. This was all _so fucking stupid_ , Pete was furious with himself. “I’m not okay,” he said. “I’m not. And the Room of Requirement wouldn’t let me in to hide and—”

“Shh,” said Patrick, pushing both of them out the door.

It was cold outside, windy, and for a moment it took Pete’s breath away and stole the tears out of his eyes. He made a small sound of unhappiness.

“Fuck,” Patrick muttered, propelling them around a corner and out of the wind. “I thought it was nicer outside. It was so sunny.” He turned Pete around and pulled him in immediately, pressing them chest-to-chest, and Pete buried his head into Patrick’s shoulder because it was there and it was warm. “Hey,” Patrick said, wrapping him up, tight and close. “I’m sorry. What can I do?”

Pete was standing there shaking apart with an emotional meltdown all over the boy he wanted to trust him with the rest of his life, and he couldn’t make himself stop, he couldn’t _stop_ , he gasped into the skin of Patrick’s neck and begged, “Don’t let me go, don’t let me go.”

“I’m not,” Patrick said. “I won’t. Fuck, Pete, shh, shh, _breathe_.”

Pete didn’t know why Patrick kept telling him to breathe, he was breathing, he was breathing _too fucking much_.

But then Patrick stroked up his back in a gentle rhythm, a drummer keeping the beat along Pete’s spine, and Pete found himself trying to match Patrick’s tempo, and then, eventually, he was breathing the regular amount, spent, his head wearily on Patrick’s shoulder.

Patrick kept up the rhythm, which Pete appreciated. He felt almost like he could fall asleep right there, and considering he hadn’t slept at all the night before, the idea was intoxicating.

“I want to go to sleep and stay asleep,” Pete mumbled. “I don’t want to have to wake up.”

“Pete,” Patrick said, sounding anguished, and pushed his nose against Pete’s head. “Don’t say that. I wanted to write another song with you. Who would give me words? I need your words.”

Pete didn’t say anything. Words felt beyond him. Who was going to give Patrick words?

“Take me flying,” Patrick said into his ear. “Fly me away from here.”

And actually. _That_ sounded like a fucking good idea.


	30. Chapter 30

Patrick wasn’t sure what the reaction in Gryffindor would be to his speech to Winifred. 

He was surprised when the rest of the sixth-year boys eventually followed him up to bed and took his side, asked interested questions about the band,  said supportive things about Pete.  They were clearly curious but not  in a gawping fashion,  in a way that felt genuine, like…well, like they liked Patrick and were willing to let him have the things that made him happy. Patrick was reluctantly persuaded that maybe Pete was right and he’d had more friend ly feelings toward him than he’d realized, all caught up in his melodrama over misunderstood musical tastes. 

Patrick had hoped that Pete’s time in Slytherin went just as unexpectedly well. Sure, it wasn’t like everyone had taken Patrick’s side but Patrick had felt more at home in Gryffindor than he had in years, like maybe finally deciding to be who he actually  _ was _ was something he should have done ages ago.

The lack of flirtatious owl from Pete was Patrick’s first indication that Pete’s night had not gone well, and Pete himself looking like death warmed over confirmed that. Pete having an outright panic attack in the Great Hall wasn’t something Patrick had been prepared for. Patrick was the one who panicked over everything. Pete was cocky and self-assured and convinced of  his own awesomeness. 

Except that Pete wasn’t. And Patrick knew Pete wasn’t as cocky and self-assured as he pretended to be. He just hadn’t realized  exactly how  deep the self-doubt Pete was covering up, how much he’d crammed into the back of his head and hoped no one would ever notice. 

Patrick clung to Pete and pressed his face into Pete’s back so he wouldn’t see how high up they were and hoped that this would help Pete feel better because Patrick didn’t know what else to do. He’d just wanted, protectively, to get Pete  _ away _ . 

Pete, however, was barely moving. The broom felt like it was only drifting through the air. 

Patrick risked a peek through one eye, and they were only a few feet above the ground. Pete seemed listless and disinterested  in flying. 

Patrick shifted so he could hook his chin over Pete’s shoulder and speak into his ear. “Hey, you can go faster and, you know, higher. If you want.” 

Pete sighed heavily. “You hate flying. I know you’re doing this for me , but you don’t have to.” 

“I don’t hate flying when I’m flying with you. ” Patrick took a deep breath and said firmly, “I trust you.” 

Pete trembled against Patrick. “You shouldn’t,” he said hoarsely. “I’m an asshole. I  hurt all of my friends just because I wanted to—It was a stupid joke and I let myself get carried away with it and I’m a really terrible person, Patrick.” 

“You’re not,” Patrick said.

Pete snorted. “You’re biased because I suck your dick for you. Amabel and Cicero would tell you that I’m a terrible person and they’d be right.” 

“You know,” Patrick said, “I could find other people to suck my dick if I thought you were terrible .” 

“Right,” Pete agreed readily. “Yes. You should. Some really nice Gryffindor boy. Or girl. Or whatever. Not my sister, please,” he added hastily. 

“Pete,” Patrick said, exasperated, and wished they were having this conversation where he could see Pete’s face more clearly. 

“ But, like, I don’t even  _ want _ to be in Gryffindor. I  _ want _ to be in Slytherin, and they don’t want me, because I was really stupid and I, like,  _ really stupid _ .” Pete fell silent. 

Patrick let him. He didn’t know what to say .  He snuggled up against Pete hard and breathed into his neck and tried to  communicate wordlessly,  _ I’m here and I’m sorry and if you tell me what to do I’ll do it. _

Pete said after a moment,  so small  it didn’t even sound like his voice, “The band was supposed to be a joke. It really was. It was kind of like a prank. Because I was bored and being a snob and I was just like, I bet I can put together a better band without really trying. It was supposed to be a joke, and then there was you, and then  it wasn’t a joke anymore.” 

Patrick considered this for a moment, then offered, “I’m sorry,” because it felt suddenly like he’d ruined Pete’s life by being so unexpected. 

Pete twisted on the broom abruptly, jostling it and upsetting Patrick’s hold on him, and Patrick flailed a little but Pete grabbed him by the front of his cardigan, twisting it in his hands and keeping him safe and secure on the broom, as he snarled, “Don’t you dare. Don’t apologize for being so fucking  _ incredible _ . It’s my fault I’m too stupid to keep my friends—”

“Pete.” Pete’s hold on him was fierce enough that Patrick felt safe cupping Pete’s face, trusting him to keep him on the broom. “All of us feel like that, you know. All of us are terrified all the time we’re going to lose the people that make us happy.  Amabel and Cicero are just as upset as you are right now. They’re upset because you’re their friend and you weren’t honest with them. If you tell them how sorry you are, I bet they’ll forgive you.” 

“They didn’t last night,” Pete said morosely. 

“They were still in shock last night. You need to talk to them again. You can’t hide from them forever.” 

“I could,” Pete said dully, looking at Patrick’s shoulder instead of his face . “I could pull the covers over my head and—”

“You know why the Room of Requirement wouldn’t let you hide? You don’t need to hide right now. You shouldn’t hide.  Take me flying, Pete. Take me to some secret spot only you know.” Patrick leaned his forehead against Pete’s. “Let me convince you that you’re how I see you.” 

Pete swallowed thickly. 

“Come on,” Patrick urged. 

Pete twisted back to face the right way. “Okay,” he mumbled. “Hold on.” 

Patrick held on and Pete’s broom did get higher but he didn’t fly much faster, and Patrick appreciated that. He circled out toward the Forbidden Forest and then dropped altitude toward the abandoned old groundskeeper’s house, the one that had been belonged to the half-giant. It was impractical for non-giants to use and had been boarded up for years, with rumors that it was haunted by all of the odd animals that groundskeepers always had hanging around them. 

“Have you ever been inside?” Pete asked, bringing the broom down to the ground in front of the house. 

Patrick’s toes brushed gratefully at solid land as he regarded the huge front door. “No. Have you?” 

“Of course. Best place in Hogwarts for a good illicit party,” said Pete, and slid off his broom. 

“It’s all boarded up,” Patrick pointed out. 

“We’re wizards,” Pete replied , and directed his wand  toward the door. “Alohomora.” 

“I feel like it should be protected by a more powerful charm so that, like, twelve-year-olds can’t get in here.” 

“Patrick, this school doesn’t make any fucking sense,” Pete said heavily, holding the door open for him. 

The place looked—and smelled—like it had been used for illicit parties. Patrick wrinkled his nose and glanced around at the debris. 

“Romantic,” he commented. 

“Yeah, well, that’s me,” said Pete, and clambered up onto the huge bed. “The soul of romance. Irresistible. Why would you ever want anything more?” 

Patrick looked at Pete, who sprawled backward on the bed, and said his name gently as he followed him up there. 

Pete, spread-eagle, looked up at him. “I’m a pain in the ass to have as a boyfriend.” 

Patrick shrugged. “Me, too.” 

“Sometimes I just have days when I don’t want to get out of bed,” Pete said. “It doesn’t have to be the day my best friends stop talking to me. It just  _ happens _ .” 

“That’s okay.” Patrick shrugged again. “Sometimes I’m pissed for no reason and take it out on everyone around me.” Patrick nudged Pete’s legs farther apart to give him room to settle between them. “You’ve never once flinched  at my moods. I think I can get through yours.” 

Pete propped himself up on his elbows to look at Patrick between his legs. His eyes were huge and wide and bottomless the way they could be. He said, “You can read my notebook.” 

“Huh?” Patrick asked, confused. 

Pete shifted slightly to pull his battered little notebook out of his pocket, handing it solemnly to Patrick. 

“Oh,” Patrick said as he took it. He had to shift his weight back and away from Pete’s groin in the action. “Pete, this is yours, you don’t have to let me read it.” 

“I don’t really want you to read it,” Pete said. “Not really. I’m so scared of that. I’m terrified. I’m trying so hard to trust you the way I want you to trust me and I’m having a really hard time with it.” 

“Pete, it’s okay,” Patrick said soothingly, trying to hand the notebook back to him. “I don’t need to read it. That can just be yours.” 

“The thing is,” insisted Pete, “ _ you can read it _ .” 

Patrick paused, perplexed. “You just said you didn’t want me to.” 

Pete shook his head. “I don’t. But. No one else even has the  _ ability _ . It’s charmed. It’s blank to everyone else. It’s blank to  _ McGonagall _ . Read the first page, Patrick.” 

Patrick hesitated, then opened the book and read the first thing written in it out loud. __ “I wish that I was as invisible as you make me feel.” He winced at the rawness of that. “Pete—”

“That’s not about you, obviously. Because you see me. Because you just read that line, that thing I wrote that no one but me has ever been able to read. You make me not invisible anymore. You make me be seen. And all of this is kind of… I’m not used to that. I’m trying to think about who I even am. I don’t know how to apologize to Amabel and Cicero because I can’t even explain how exhausted I am right now, and how the only person who’s ever seen me is you, and how that made me…fall. It made me fall. All this careful balance I had in the fictions of my life. You made me fall, Trick. I don’t know what happens when I hit the ground.” 

Patrick looked down at the little notebook in his head, absorbing what Pete was saying. He, for some reason, could read Pete’s secret notebook. He could read it…because he  _ saw Pete _ . That’s what Pete was saying, wasn’t it? 

Patrick handed Pete back the notebook and nudged him back onto his back and spread out over him, pressing him down into the mattress. Pete loved to be weighed down, Patrick  had  noticed. He had a habit of doing it whenever Pete seemed too flighty to Patrick, too unable to focus. He would find a way to get him under him and lean onto and into him until his breath ing dragged heavily and his huge, dark eyes just drank Patrick in and he was finally still and he was  _ Patrick’s _ . Pete, Patrick thought, had never learned how to hit the ground without a self-destructive splat. Patrick was going to find a way to gentle that landing. 

Patrick pressed Pete’s hands into the mattress beside his head, and Pete’s fingers curled into his willingly, grasping tight. Patrick thought of the way Pete had gasped not to let him go. “I’ve never been able to fly on a broom,” Patrick murmured, “because I was always scared of falling. I’m not scared of falling anymore. Because I know you’re not going to let me hit the ground. Can you believe the same of me? You don’t have to worry about what’s going to happen when you hit the ground. Because I won’t let it happen.” 

Pete looked up at him and said, “Patrick, I want—I want so much. I want everything.  I want everything so much that it’s like  I want nothing. I don’t even know anymore.  But I know  I want you. I just want  _ you _ .” 

“I know,” Patrick said. “Me, too.” 


	31. Chapter 31

Pete’s exhaustion was no longer a cavernous, devouring thing in his chest, swallowing Pete’s organs whole and keeping him chained to bed and indifference. Instead his exhaustion was licking along his edges, like the rasp of cat’s tongue. In the burned-out middle of him, where everything was war-ravaged from long-ago battles, there was a tiny flickering brightness that felt like the sun coming up. Pete, curled up against Patrick, tried to concentrate on growing that; he wanted to feel it all through him.

“Hey,” Patrick whispered. He slid down in the bed to put them nose-to-nose. It was dark in the house. A storm had rolled in, and rain was lashing up against the windows, and Patrick’s eyes were a luminous gray in the low light. He reached out and brushed Pete’s matted hair off of his forehead. “Are you okay?”

“Better,” Pete answered seriously. “I’m better. You’re good at taking me apart, and when you put me back together again you put the pieces back the right way, and so the pain of shoving things in to fit is still there but it’s easing up because you figured out how I was supposed to go. Or something. That’s a thing I’ve been thinking for a while about you, but I didn’t know how to tell you. It’s in my notebook. Sometimes that’s what I do in the notebook, I just…try out the things I want to say. I try out how the feelings look written down. You know?”

“Not really,” said Patrick. “But I’m not a writer. I think I do that with music, try it out first, trial and error, hear it in my head for a long time before I try to make it live in the world.”

“Yeah,” Pete said, and managed a nice deep breath for the first time that day. The tiny light inside of him leaped a bit higher. “Exactly.” Pete rolled away from Patrick to find a wand and aim it at the fireplace. It was Patrick’s wand, but it responded to him well enough to start a feeble fire in the fireplace. “Here,” Pete said, handing Patrick the wand. “It’s yours. Make it bigger.”

Patrick made the fire bigger and then said to Pete, “You’re a really talented wizard, you know. I can’t make anything work with someone else’s wand.”

Pete shrugged. He didn’t _feel_ like a talented wizard. “I guess. I just wanted to give you a fire for that romantic ambience you seemed to want, and your wand was willing to help me out with that.”

“Yeah, romantic ambience, cool,” said Patrick lightly. “How many other people have you fucked in this bed?”

Patrick sounded teasing and fond and Pete wanted to be a person who was teased fondly, so he made himself smile, and then once he had made himself smile it did seem funnier, because, well, this _was_ a super-convenient place for a fuck, much like the Room of Requirement was, and it was bewildering to him that Patrick had never used it before.

“Where do Gryffindors actually fuck?” Pete asked curiously. “You don’t know any of the best spots.”

“We have _bedrooms_ ,” Patrick said. “Don’t you have bedrooms?”

“But, Patrick, that is so _boring_.”

“I’m so glad I’ve got you to show me all the glamorous places to fuck,” remarked Patrick. “Like this bedbug-infested, firewhiskey-soaked mattress.”

Pete snorted and rolled on top of Patrick because he couldn’t resist making full contact with the _joy_ of him. “The bedbugs amplify the experience.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, they add that element of danger that makes any sexual encounter more compelling.”

“Wow, it’s _such_ a good thing I met you, I was having totally subpar sex where no one was going to get a bedbug infestation or roll off a roof.”

“Gryffindor-style sex,” Pete said. “I bet it’s always in the missionary position.”

“That’s a Hogwarts-house joke,” Patrick said meaningfully, ruffling Pete’s hair. “I’m glad.”

Pete supposed that definitely _was_ a sign of feeling better. He was tired but a regular tired, a curl-up-and-nap tired, an all-nighter-and-spectacular-sex tired. “Thank you,” he said to Patrick.

“I’m not entirely sure what I did,” Patrick admitted. “I’m just glad something helped.”

“It was your dick,” said Pete. “Your dick really improved the situation.” Pete shifted to put it into view. “Thank you, Patrick’s dick.”

“It’s actually good to have your stupid jokes back,” Patrick sighed.

“I’m sorry I—”

Patrick pressed a finger to his lips. “Don’t,” he said softly. “I bet, in our futures together, there are going to be a million reasons you should apologize to me. This isn’t one of them. This is _never_ going to be one of them. I will tell you that until the day you believe it, and then I’ll keep telling you it more. Okay?”

Pete closed his eyes and concentrated on not bursting into tears. He leaned down to press his face into Patrick’s neck in case he wasn’t successful. He said, “I know better than to argue with that particular stubborn tone of your voice.”

“Really?” drawled Patrick sarcastically. “I didn’t know there was a tone of voice I had that you didn’t immediately want to argue with.”

Pete chuckled wetly. “It’s our _foreplay_. Joe and Andy love it.”

Patrick scoffed. “Poor Joe and Andy, we’re the worst.”

Pete shifted to look at the crackling fire and tried to feel nothing but Patrick underneath him. He said, “Do you think they’ll still want to be in the band?”

“Of course, Pete.” Patrick carded his fingers soothingly through Pete’s hair. “Of course, baby,” he whispered.

Patrick didn’t use term of endearments with him. Ever. It said something very profound about how worried Patrick had been that he would use one now. Pete wished he didn’t cause the people he loved to worry so much. He wished he knew the trick to stopping that. He bit his tongue before he could apologize again, though.

Instead, he closed his eyes and listened to Patrick’s heart beating under his ear. Patrick’s heart, this amazing thing keeping Patrick alive for him.

“Would it be weird if I sent your heart a thank-you note?” he slurred out sleepily. “Your heart, your lungs, your skeleton…”

“Go to sleep, Pete,” said Patrick.


	32. Chapter 32

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! Thank you for all my lovely comments! I'm away for work this weekend and it's been massively busy but they have been delightful bits of joy to receive in my workday, so yay! :-)

Patrick had slept the night before, and also hadn’t been so emotionally destroyed, so he wasn’t as exhausted as Pete clearly was. He dozed a little while Pete slept but mostly he stroked Pete’s hair and used the rhythm of Pete’s breaths as the scaffolding for a song, his heartbeat for a bassline, the rain pattering against the window in harmony.

The onset of the rain meant that Patrick had little concept of what time it was. Not that it mattered. He wasn’t going to wake Pete up when Pete so clearly needed the sleep. So he just waited, and wrote songs in his head, and thought about being the one who could see Pete’s words, the inner scribblings of his heart. He was the one who gave voice to Pete’s emotions. The responsibility involved with that was tremendous.

Patrick had never thought of their band as a joke, and he would have been offended at Pete’s confession that he thought of it that way, except for the fact that that had initially been obvious to Patrick. Being asked to be in Pete Wentz’s band: that had _clearly_ been a joke. But he knew it wasn’t a joke now. He knew that, to Pete, the band had to be worth all of this trouble it had caused him. Pete had had to face his closest friends and admit to secretly plotting against their victory; he would not have done that if the band was anything like a joke to him now. It just clearly wasn’t.

Patrick thought of the fight they’d had the day before, of Pete so earnest and serious and committed to the rest of their lives. No, this band wasn’t a joke. Pete wanted this band to be _their entire lives_.

And Patrick hadn’t gone all-in with him. For valid reasons, but still, knowing now how deadly serious Pete was about the band, it had to have hurt Pete not to have Patrick as totally, immediately committed. Patrick had told Winifred not to hurt Pete anymore, but Patrick had hurt him first that day, Patrick thought. No wonder Pete had gone a little desperate. It had been a roller coaster of a day.

Pete eventually stirred against Patrick, stretching, rubbing his cheek into his chest. “How long have I been asleep like this?” he mumbled. “This whole side of your body must be numb.”

“It’s cool,” Patrick said, because it had been a willing sacrifice on Patrick’s part.

Pete yawned hugely and snuggled harder into Patrick. “I’m moving in a second,” he promised, although he sounded more like he was going back to sleep.

Patrick stroked his hair and didn’t protest.

Pete eventually stretched again and sat up, his hair flattened adorably on one side of his head. He looked sweet and soft and kissable. Patrick, with a pang, thought that he wanted to wake up next to Pete every single day. “Okay,” Pete announced, a little more convincingly. “I’m up now.” He looked toward the window, at the gray half-light of the day. “What time is it?”

“No idea,” said Patrick. He also looked at the window. It was still raining. “Going to be a pleasant ride back to the castle, though.”

“I’ll charm the rain away from us,” Pete said negligently.

Patrick shook his head a little. Pete could be just so casually brilliant. “Of course you will,” he said.

“Or,” said Pete, and looked brightly at Patrick. “We could just never go back?”

“Live in this giant cottage forever?” said Patrick drily. “Eventually someone trying to have an illicit party would find us.”

“There’s a tunnel under the Whomping Willow,” said Pete readily. “Goes out to Hogsmeade. We could take it and make a run for it.”

“Is there really?” Patrick asked dubiously. “How do you know this? Why would that exist?”

“Because sometimes people have to _leave Hogwarts_ ,” Pete said sourly. “I know this place thinks it’s the pinnacle of everyone’s existence, but some kind soul left a way for the rest of us to get out, and generations of Hogwarts miscreants like me have been protecting it.”

“If you knew about this tunnel,” said Patrick, “why haven’t you ever taken it before?”

Pete looked at him for a moment, then said, “Because there was no reason to use it. Where would I go? What would I do? Now, I know if I left, I’d leave with you. And the other questions don’t seem so important.”

“Don’t take this the wrong way, but those questions are still important. Plus, our families would be upset.”

“Would they?” asked Pete. “Maybe _yours_.”

“Yours, too,” Patrick said firmly. “I’m sure your parents love you.”

“Don’t be so sure. You’ve never met them. I have.”

Patrick decided to drop that line of conversation. He couldn’t imagine Pete’s parents not loving him, he was sweet and talented and just because he was a little bit of a mess, just because he was in _Slytherin_ , that was no reason not to _love_ him. But then again, Patrick’s dad had left him before he could even remember him, so it wasn’t like Patrick wasn’t aware that some parents just didn’t feel that way about their kids.

“What about Amabel and Cicero?” he tried instead. “Wouldn’t they miss you? The rest of your Quidditch team?”

“I don’t know,” said Pete miserably. “They all hate me now.”

Patrick was undoing all of the good work he’d done, he thought. “What if I met them all?” Patrick suggested. “So that they would know I’m not an anti-Slytherin bigot.”

Pete looked at him suddenly, a look in his eyes that Patrick was coming to recognize. It meant that Patrick was about to be talked into something he didn’t want to actually do. “That’s a great idea!” Pete enthused. “We can invite them to a practice!”

“A what?” said Patrick, alarmed.

“A band practice! What better way to convince all of my friends that I’ve got a good reason for what I’m doing? Once they hear you sing, they’ll realize I had no choice! Of _course_ I had to be in a band with you. Of _course_.”

“I mean,” said Patrick, “also the fact that I’m a nice person who loves you, like, that makes me a good boyfriend, I bet that could convince them, too.”

Pete waved his hand around dismissively. “‘Nice person.’ That’s such a Gryffindor thing to say, Patrick. Imagine me telling all of my friends I betrayed them for a _nice person_.”

“You betrayed them for my voice?” asked Patrick, a little hurt.

“I betrayed them for a hot piece of ass who frowns at me sexily all the time and is absolutely hilarious and isn’t bothered when I’m a huge asshole and is unbelievably good in bed and other bed-substitute places but all of that would take a while to get across to them. Other than the hot piece of ass and sexy frowning, that’s just you all the time, that’s you _right now_ —”

“Pete,” Patrick frowned, definitely _not_ sexily.

“—and the sex stuff, like, they’ll just have to take my word on the sex stuff, I’m not really into sharing you, I hope that’s okay, but _your voice_. That’s instantaneous and immediate and I won’t have to explain anything else, it’ll make total sense to them.”

Patrick supposed there was some logic to that. Although it felt like Pete-logic to him. Like once it wasn’t Pete saying it to him anymore it would make zero sense and he would have no idea how he was talked into believing it. Well, he would know exactly how he was talked into it: fucking _Pete_.

Patrick said, “Okay, I’m not—I’m not good at singing in front of other people. I’ve been trying to tell you that, this whole time, and you keep thinking that’s not going to be a big deal, but I’m scared I’m going to freak out and that’s not going to make your friends like me.”

“You won’t freak out,” Pete said confidently. “You’re going to have me right next to you. I won’t let you freak out. Trust me, Patrick. I won’t let you hit the ground.”

Pete smiled at him, so sunny and excited about this idea, and Patrick didn’t have the heart to deny him. He said reluctantly, “Okay,” and prayed he didn’t fuck this up.


	33. Chapter 33

Pete charmed them dry for the trip back to the castle, sending the rain away from them. Patrick seemed to be amazed by this and seemed to think it was impressive. Pete was beginning to think that Patrick was easily impressed. Which was a good thing as far as Pete’s ability to keep Patrick went, Pete thought.

They walked into the school together, perfectly dry, and there was enough noise coming from the Great Hall that Patrick said, “It must be dinner.”

Pete hesitated. He didn’t really want a repeat of that morning. At the same time, he was feeling much better.

“You can sit with Gryffindor again if you want,” Patrick offered. “Or we can just skip dinner.”

“No,” Pete said firmly. He had to face his house someday, he might as well get it over with. “I’ll sit with Slytherin. I’ll be okay.”

Patrick gave him a close look, then said, “Okay,” and sounded like he genuinely believed in Pete’s ability to _do_ this.

It made Pete walk into the Great Hall with a swagger he would never have expected to have ever again. He _could_ do this. He totally could. Patrick had faith in him and Pete had unerring faith in Patrick, so if Patrick thought this would work…then it would work.

The Slytherin table watched his approach with various depths of frowning. Pete wanted to tell all of them that Patrick frowned at him constantly, so he was starting to associate frowns with sex and they’d better knock it off, but he wasn’t sure the joke would go over well.

Instead, Pete drew to a halt next to the empty seat opposite Amabel and Cicero and said, “Hey. Can I sit here?”

Amabel and Cicero looked astonished at him, and then Cicero said, “I…guess?”

It sounded less than enthusiastic, but Pete took the opening, settling into his spot. Food appeared on his plate and Pete contemplated eating some of it.

Amabel and Cicero just looked across at him stonily, which didn’t exactly make Pete feel like eating much.

He stubbornly took a bite of whatever nameless meat was on the menu tonight and said to Amabel and Cicero, “So. I know. I owe both of you the hugest apology.”

“You think?” said Amabel, desert dry.

“I tried to apologize last night—” Pete began.

“You’re sorry you got _caught_ ,” Cicero interrupted him. “I’ve never seen you sorry for anything except getting caught.”

“No.” Pete shook his head. “I’m sorry for _this_. I didn’t mean to—Look. The band was supposed to be a joke, okay? I was bored and the Slytherin band…wasn’t the right band for me. But I didn’t want to make it over in my image, that didn’t seem fair.”

“The whole house is in your fucking image,” Amabel pointed out skeptically. “All of a sudden Pete Wentz developed modesty?”

“Okay,” Pete allowed, because that was a fair point, “Pete Wenz developed _apathy_. I just didn’t… I didn’t want to have to invest the effort in the house band. It seemed pointless. It seemed like a thing that wouldn’t…that wouldn’t ever be what I wanted it to be.”

“You could have said that to us,” Cicero said, sounding unbearably hurt. “You could have said, ‘Hey, everyone, I have a different idea about what this band should be.’”

“I know,” Pete said. “I know I could have. But I didn’t… I’m trying to say that it felt like effort. It felt like a thing I didn’t want to do. I was _tired_.” Pete looked at them, trying to will them to understand. “I don’t know. I was tired. It seemed like so much…so much… The other band wasn’t going to be serious, it was just going to be a joke, and that was going to save me the effort of having to take the band contest seriously, like, the Slytherin band was something I had to take seriously, this was just a joke.”

“A joke you were going to show up with to humiliate Slytherin at the contest?” demanded Cicero.

“No,” Pete said. “ _No_. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. That was the opposite of the point. It was a joke, like, we were just going to fool around and have fun. I swear. I was tired and I wanted a break.” Pete didn’t know how else to explain this, and definitely not in a way that didn’t make it sound like he was blaming Amabel and Cicero and the rest of Slytherin for the fact that he was so tired. Because he _wasn’t_. The tiredness underneath Pete’s Peteness wasn’t a thing anyone was responsible for but Pete. He sighed and rubbed at his temples and said sadly, “I was just tired, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have done it, I just felt so…” _Tired, and desperate, and lonely, and it’s the last fucking year and I don’t want to have to do any of this anymore_ , Pete didn’t say.

Amabel surprised him by saying his name so gently that he couldn’t help but look up at her.

She didn’t look angry, really. She even gave him a small smile. “It didn’t have to be your job and yours alone. The Slytherin band. We would have helped you. None of this has to be all _you_ , you know. We’re all sitting right fucking here. You’re so bad at asking for help. Why didn’t you just _say_ , ‘Hey, guys, I don’t feel like doing this, it’s too much’?”

The thought of saying _no_ to things didn’t really occur to Pete. His world was full of the word _yes_. He said in bewilderment, “I don’t… I don’t know.”

“You could have just said,” Amabel continued frankly, crossing her arms and regarding Pete, “‘I don’t want to do this band contest thing, you guys do it.’”

“But that’s not what happened,” Cicero pointed out. “You _are_ doing the band contest thing, you’re just not doing it with us.”

“I know,” Pete said helplessly. “Patrick is… He was…”

“You could have just said,” said Amabel, eyes sharp on Pete, “‘Hey, I met this guy and I’m in love, we really connected through music, we’re going to take over the world.’” She paused. “Because isn’t that what happened?”

Pete swallowed thickly and nodded.

Amabel shook her head in exasperation. “Why didn’t you just _say_? Why didn’t you just _tell_ us? Any of this? At any point?”

“Tell you I fell in love with a _Gryffindor_ and I was going to write songs with him?” said Pete incredulously, because surely Amabel heard how that sounded.

“ _Yes_ ,” Amabel insisted. “Pete, that’s fucking exactly what happened and we were always going to eventually find out, instead we didn’t find out from our _best friend_ , we found out from some stammering Gryffindors showing up at our door and telling us that you’ve been fucking this Patrick kid so seriously that he brought you to Gryffindor Tower. And oh, wait, then the Slytherin littles tell us, ‘Wait, Patrick, we know Patrick, he was in the Dungeon curing Pete’s dragon pox.’ What the fuck, Pete, that this is how we find out about your _boyfriend_? We are your _friends_. Why would you not just tell us? So what, he’s a Gryffindor. Who gives an actual fuck, Pete, if you trust him, we’d get over it. You’d say, ‘He’s a nice guy who’s good to me and will be nice to all of you,’ and we’d say, ‘Well, let’s meet him,’ and you’d fucking go to Hogsmeade with us and we’d have a butterbeer together instead of you _lying_ to us about being _sick_ , we worried all day about you, you asshole.”

Pete, chastened, looked from Amabel to his hands and back again and finally offered in a small voice, “I’m sorry?”

Amabel exhaled mightily and just said, “ _Pete_ ,” in that tone of voice Pete knew, that tone of voice people got around him, that he was too much and they couldn’t deal with him anymore.

“I get it if you don’t want to be friends with me anymore,” Pete offered. “I mean, I totally get it, you don’t have to, like, I get it, I’m _so sorry_ , I wish you would—”

“Pete, don’t be ridiculous,” said Cicero.

“Who said anything about not being your friend anymore?” Amabel demanded. “Pete, for fuck’s sake, we’re saying _introduce us to your fucking boyfriend_.”

Pete stared at her, blinking between them, trying to comprehend this, that all of this happened, Pete did all of this, and Amabel and Cicero mostly seemed angry not that he’d done it but that he hadn’t _told_ them. Like, maybe, maybe, if he’d just said at the very beginning, maybe it really would have been okay. Maybe… Maybe things were going to be okay. “Yeah?” said Pete hopefully.

Pete did not expect what happened next, not in a million years. Amabel stood up, and Pete tried to figure out if it was to give her a better angle for getting things through his thick skull, but then Amabel started marching across the Great Hall. The room fell silent to watch her, and Pete’s eyes flickered toward Patrick at the Gryffindor table, also watching Amabel’s approach, and Pete realized her destination and scrambled to his feet to dash after her.

Amabel reached Patrick and looked down at him. “You’re Patrick, right?” she demanded.

Patrick said slowly, “Yes.”

“Hi.” Amabel stuck her hand out. “I’m Amabel. I’m one of Pete’s friends. We probably should have been introduced a long time ago.”

Pete reached Amabel’s side in time for Patrick to slide his gaze over to him, curious. Pete, out of breath, said quickly, “Amabel, this is Patrick. Patrick, this is Amabel.”

Amabel rolled her eyes and elbowed him lightly and said, “You don’t get credit for the introduction _now_ , asshole.”

Patrick shook Amabel’s offered hand, his mouth pursed with what Pete recognized as amusement, and Pete thought, _Great, they are totally going to gang up on me_. He said, “Hi, I’m Patrick, it’s so nice to meet you, we probably have a lot to talk about.”

“So much,” agreed Amabel fervently, as Cicero joined them. “This is Cicero. Cicero, this is Patrick, Pete’s secret boyfriend.”

Patrick blushed but said steadily, “Hi, Cicero.”

“Okay,” said Pete, realizing they were still the center of attention and registering that Patrick sometimes seemed to hate that. “Can we just sit down or something because—”

“You can sit with us,” chirruped the Gryffindor sitting next to Patrick, and a chorus of Gryffindors agreed, and everyone in a flurry of chatter made room for three extra people at the Gryffindor table.

“Oh, wow, that’s so nice of you, thanks,” said Amabel pleasantly, and sat.

“Cool,” said Cicero brightly, sitting next to her, and introduced himself to the Gryffindor on the other side of him. “I’m Cicero, I think we have Advanced Charms together.”

“Oh, yeah,” the Gryffindor agreed, “totally, I’m Clio.”

“Pete,” Patrick said to him, “sit,” and took his hand and tugged him down next to him.

Pete, dazed, sat. He blinked at the intermingled crowd of Slytherin and Gryffindor around them. He thought, _Wait, was it always this easy? Was I the only one ever making it difficult?_

Patrick, under the table, kept his hand curled into Pete’s and said lightly to Amabel, “You were so good in the Quidditch match. I admittedly don’t know much about Quidditch but you and the rest of the team were just so good.”

“Pete makes us practice constantly, he’s awful,” said Amabel.

“Yes, he makes _us_ practice constantly, too, he’s a nightmare,” Patrick replied.

Pete looked between the two of them and thought, _No, really, they are totally going to gang up on me_. It was amazing.


	34. Chapter 34

Pete’s hand clung to his less as dinner went on. It started out with an iron grip but as the conversation moved and flowed and no one had any kind of duel and everyone just complained about classes and homework and Peeves, Patrick could feel Pete relaxing by slow degrees next to him, his hold on Patrick’s hand lessening, and then Pete leaned forward to correct a story about something Pete had done in Potions, and Patrick hadn’t really been following the story but the fact that Pete suddenly leaped into the conversation and was no longer blinking in silent astonishment next to him made Patrick exhale all of the tension in him. Somehow he, Patrick Stump, whose Hogwarts goal had been to keep his head down and not be noticed, was sitting here presiding over a chattering crowd of Slytherins and Gryffindors, and the whole school was watching him, and it was totally okay because Pete had a brightness in his eyes that Patrick had only ever seen when Patrick was singing. Maybe Patrick should have been protectively jealous of that brightness but he liked the idea that the Pete who seemed to relax into existence when Patrick sang, easy and unguarded and content for once, might be able to always exist. Patrick would withstand a million public center-of-attention moments for that.

Silah had leaned forward to dispute one of the details of the story and Pete and Amabel and Cicero were all good-naturedly shouting her down and Clio was laughing and saying they were _all_ wrong and Patrick glanced toward Winifred at the other end of the table. The thing about Winifred was she looked a great deal like Pete but she was weirdly unreadable to Patrick; her face showed expression less than Pete’s did, or maybe it was just that Pete was the person Patrick somehow read best in the entire universe, read so well that he could read straight through his protective charms. For whatever reason, he had no idea what Winifred was thinking as she watched Pete at the Gryffindor table. He did know that Wilf was creeping ever closer, his deep gold Wentz eyes pinned avidly on Pete.

“Patrick, Patrick,” Pete said, turning to him, laughing at something Cicero was saying to him. “No, wait, stop it, that _isn’t true_ , you asshole,” he said to Cicero, and turned back to Patrick still laughing, tugging at him, “Patrick, did I ever practice that freefall move in the match yesterday, tell them I never practiced that and that was just _innate good talent_ , tell them.”

Patrick paled, staring at Pete. “You fucking idiot, did you really never practice that?” he said in alarm.

“Oh,” said Pete. “Oops. Let’s change the subject,” he announced, and the table laughed at him, and Patrick marveled at how lovely he seemed, nestled close enough against Patrick that Patrick could feel the heat of him, that their arms brushed together whenever Pete leaned forward in eagerness to contribute something.

Patrick had this sudden crystal-clear moment of love throbbing through him, making him light-headed and dizzy, making him ache with the sureness with which he wanted to keep Pete just as happy as this forever and ever. Patrick knew he was in love, Patrick had watched all of it happen, and at the same time he couldn’t wrap his mind around the swallowed-whole depth of it.

Clio, who was on the Gryffindor Quidditch team, said, “Dude, that was, like, a _death wish_ , that fall.”

Patrick frowned at Pete through the haze of his love.

“Ha ha,” said Pete, glancing at him nervously. “No, no, let’s seriously change the subject.”

“So,” Joe Trohman said with perfect timing.

Patrick looked up at where Joe and Andy were now standing by their table.

“We thought we would…” Joe trailed off and shrugged. “I don’t know, it was Andy’s idea, he’s the Ravenclaw.”

“Given the amount of attention on the band right now,” Andy said graciously, “we thought we should show our support.”

“This is the rest of the band,” Pete said happily. “This is Joe and this is Andy and this is…” Pete waved his hand around. “A bunch of people.”

“So, this band,” said Amabel. “What’s it called?”

“Huh,” said Pete, stumped.

“You don’t have a _name_?” said Silah. “Isn’t that, like, the first thing a band needs?”

“The first thing a band needs is good music,” Pete replied.

“Okay, speaking of,” said Cicero. “When do we get to hear this music?”

There was a pause. Pete glanced at Patrick and then said, “Well, there’s going to be a band contest—”

“You’re going to make us, _your friends_ ,” said Amabel meaningfully, “wait for the contest to hear this incredible band you had to create?”

Pete looked at Patrick again, hopeful puppy-dog eyes in place.

_Fuck_ , thought Patrick, and sighed and said, “I mean, we do practice, I guess people could go to our practice—”

He didn’t have the words out before there was a clamor for information about the next practice. _Oh, fuck_ , Patrick thought again, thinking of how many people were going to be watching him sing soon.

“Don’t think about it,” said Pete, leaning close to his ear.

“Easy for you to say,” said Patrick, mouth dry at the prospect. Everyone else was chattering excitedly about the practice, Joe and Andy now looped into the conversation.

“I’m going to make out with you from now until the practice, just to stop you thinking about it,” breathed Pete.

“You can’t make out with me during the actual performance,” Patrick pointed out.

“Watch me,” Pete scoffed. “You underestimate my making-out-with-you determination.”

Patrick knew Pete was trying to make him feel better, and he tried not to look too dubious.

“You’re going to be amazing,” Pete promised, ducking his voice even lower. And then he frowned past Patrick.

“What?” Patrick turned to look behind him.

“Nothing, my sister…”

“You should talk to her,” Patrick suggested.

Pete gave him a flat look. “Yeah, okay.” His tone was desert dry.

“Pete, she’s your sister.”

“I’m not fucking talking to her after the stunt she just pulled with you,” Pete insisted.

Fair enough, Patrick thought, and suppressed his sigh. He just felt like Pete’s entire family was ridiculous over this Gryffindor vs. Slytherin nonsense.

Which was when Wilf interrupted them to say shyly, “Hi.”

Pete looked at him, startled.

Patrick’s impression of Wilf Wentz, based vaguely on encountering him in the Gryffindor common room, was that he was quiet and unassuming – the exact opposite of his older brother. Patrick wished he could remember Pete clearly when he had been younger, because he wondered if Pete had been like that ever, mousy and unremarkable, eyes passing over him. Somehow, Patrick doubted it. If Pete had ever gone through a phase where he wasn’t demanding the spotlight, it had definitely been a brief one.

Now, Wilf Wentz stood between them, as mousy and unremarkable as ever, with unmistakable hero worship in his eyes as he looked at Pete.

Patrick said, “Hi,” because Pete was just staring at Wilf.

“So, like,” said Wilf, addressing Pete instead of Patrick, “you’ve got this band, huh?”

Patrick looked at Pete.

Pete, eyes on Wilf, said, “Yeah,” sounding only slightly strangled.

Wilf gave Pete a sweet, adoring grin – goofier than any Patrick had ever seen on Pete but definitely the sibling of the way Pete grinned at Patrick, warm and open and from the bottom of his soul. He said, “I bet it’s the coolest band,” with sure confidence.

Pete said faintly, “I don’t… I mean, I guess. It’s pretty good.” Pete paused and then said, “This is Patrick. He’s our singer.”

“Hi,” Wilf said to him briefly.

“Hi,” Patrick replied.

Pete said, “We’re practicing tomorrow night, you should totally come.”

Wilf’s entire face lit up, eyes glowing amber. “Awesome! Yes! Definitely! I’ll be there! Where do you practice? Oh, wait, I guess I can just go with Patrick.” Wilf looked eagerly at Patrick. “Can I go with you?”

“Sure,” Patrick agreed affably, pretending he wasn’t going to be throwing up from nerves and would be able to take Wilf to practice with him.

“Awesome!” Wilf chirped, and then skipped away from them.

Pete gave Patrick a dazed look and opened his mouth to speak.

And then McGonagall said, “That’s curfew, even for you two. I think you’ve had enough time together this weekend, don’t you?”

She leveled them with a look that made Patrick wonder if she knew what they’d done in the groundskeeper’s house, and that made Patrick blush from his ears to the tips of his toes, unavoidably.

Fucking magic, he should have made Pete charm the house before they’d fucked in it.


	35. Chapter 35

Patrick said something like, “Sure, yes, absolutely,” to McGonagall, but Pete was paying zero attention. Pete was staring after Wilf, staring after the crowd of intermingled Slytherins and Gryffindors moving toward the Great Hall doors, Joe and Andy smack-dab in the middle of them, exactly like all of them belonged thrown together like that.

“Pete,” Patrick said, “do you think McGonagall knows we had sex in the groundskeeper’s house?”

“Am I a self-destructive nightmare?” Pete blurted out.

Patrick blinked. “What?”

“I think I am.” Now that Pete had begun voicing this, he couldn’t stop. This was stuff he should stick in his notebook but maybe Patrick _was_ his notebook right now. “I think I must be. I think I caused all these issues in my own fucking head, where really if I’d just told everyone—if I’d just told everyone how I feel, maybe it was all going to work out like this, and I made everything terrible by…by being who I _am_.” Pete tried to comprehend this, that he had made everything so much worse than it had to be, because he was just an idiotic person who just went around causing trouble, whereas if he just…stopped being…so _him_ …things would run smoothly. If he could be _someone else_. Didn’t it always come down to that, from his very first day at Hogwarts: if he could just be someone fucking else than who he was, there would be way fewer problems. “What the fuck is wrong with me,” Pete wondered faintly.

“Pete,” Patrick said, and put a finger under his chin to tip his face up. Pete gulped up the sight of him, the way faint freckles bridged his nose and his red-gold hair fluffed over his forehead and his eyes were blue, blue, with green lurking underneath and his lush mouth was set in a firm line over _Pete_. Pete stared at him and stared and stared like just the sight of him could make him think differently. And then Patrick kept talking. “Nothing is wrong with you. Sometimes you take a roundabout way to get somewhere but you get to that place in the end, and the truth is without you and your roundabout way, we might never have gotten there in the first place. Without you and your band, I definitely wouldn’t be singing, right? And Slytherins wouldn’t have been at the Gryffindor table. It wasn’t the most direct route, but that’s okay. Life’s a journey, or something, right? That sounds like something you would think.”

Pete looked at Patrick, who looked vaguely uncomfortable over this pep talk, and loved him so furiously much. _Patrick could see him, and Patrick was there_. Even if Pete was a self-destructive nightmare, he was Patrick’s, and Patrick seemed to think being a self-destructive nightmare wasn’t the worst thing in the world. Being _Pete_ wasn’t the worst thing in the world, to Patrick.

Pete said suddenly, “Cork tree maneuvers. What the fuck are those?”

“Huh?” said Patrick.

“Before, you said I was teaching you cork tree maneuvers on the broom, didn’t you?”

Patrick blushed in that delightful way he had, tips of his ears on down. Pete avidly watched the flush spread. “I don’t know, I was making stuff up. Can we go back to our houses before we get in even more trouble this weekend?” Pete stood and followed Patrick out of the Great Hall, Patrick still grumbling good-naturedly. “I went six years without ever going to McGonagall’s office, I don’t want to go twice in the same weekend.”

He was talking for Pete’s benefit, Pete thought. Filling the silence, trying to distract Pete’s brain.

Pete smiled and interjected, “Also, yes,” as they started climbing the stairs together.

“Yes what?”

“Yes, McGonagall definitely knows we had sex in the groundskeeper’s house.”

Patrick dropped Pete’s hand, which Pete hadn’t even realized he was holding until just that moment. “Ew,” he complained. “Seriously? For real? That’s so gross. We might never be able to have sex ever again.”

“Sure,” Pete said, with hot, settled confidence. “Totally. You will definitely be able to resist having sex with me. Like, I will not be able to convince you to have sex with me at all. You’ll be like, ‘Sex? With you? Uh-uh, no way,’ when confronted with my dick.”

“You know,” Patrick said calmly, “you have this way of making what could be dirty talk incredible unattractive.”

Pete laughed and said, with the same hot, settled confidence, “Sure I do.”

Patrick’s mouth twitched with what Pete decided was the impulse to kiss Pete. He said, “I’m going to Gryffindor Tower like a responsible Hogwarts student.”

“Not the Room of Requirement with me?” pouted Pete, just to watch Patrick flush.

“No,” Patrick said staunchly, even as Pete backed him into an alcove off the staircase. Patrick’s elbow collided with the statue of the goblin Pete slid them next to.

Pete tugged at Patrick’s lower lip with his teeth and murmured, “It’s so hot when you go all Gryffindor this way.”

Patrick sighed and tangled his fingers into Pete’s hair and turned his head to kiss him more fully. “You’re going to get us fucking expelled,” he mumbled.

Pete had started the day unable to drag himself out of bed and he was ending it making out with a hot boy, and yeah, he was definitely a self-destructive nightmare but he liked what it had gotten him. “Patrick,” Pete said into Patrick’s throat, and dragged his nose across his skin just to anchor himself in how real Patrick was. “Thank you, thank you,” he said, because it was important to say it.

“Don’t,” Patrick murmured against Pete’s temple, hand still caught in Pete’s hair. “Don’t, Pete. No thanks necessary.” Patrick pressed a kiss to Pete’s forehead, and Pete squeezed his eyes shut against the emotion of that. “Go back to Slytherin. See your friends. Sleep well. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Pete nodded and watched Patrick head off toward Gryffindor. Patrick turned and waved at him just as he turned the corner out of sight. Pete glanced off toward the Slytherin Dungeon and went toward the owlery instead.

Peeves came out of nowhere to float after him tauntingly. “You are going to get in tons of trouble!” he sing-songed at him.

“Fuck off,” Pete said pleasantly, pulling one of the school owls over to him. He scrawled on a piece of paper, _This is worth a detention to say: I love you_ , and then directed the owl to Patrick. Then he turned back to Peeves, who was doing somersaults in the air. “Now,” Pete announced, “I’m going to go see my friends.”

And he walked out of the owlery.

And then back in to send a second note to Patrick.


	36. Chapter 36

The owl was tapping at the common room window, and Monica said, “Yo, Patrick, that is clearly your boyfriend.”

Patrick was trying to catch up on homework while fielding more questions than he generally ever got, ever. Mostly about the band and music, so they were good questions, but still. It was a lot. He looked over at the window, almost as an escape. “My boyfriend isn’t an owl,” he said.

“Who’s sending an owl after curfew?” asked Silah.

“Definitely Pete Wentz, is what I’m saying,” Monica finished, giving Patrick a teasing look.

Patrick sighed and rolled his eyes and went over to the window, trying not to look as if his heart was inflated with buoyant joy. Because, yeah, he was inclined to agree that this was Pete, sending him his daily owl. Late but not forgotten.

_This is worth a detention to say: I love you_ , read the note.

“Oh, yeah, definitely his boyfriend,” said Sammy. “Look at that blush.”

Patrick didn’t know how to cope with that. He’d gone from never being noticed to center of attention and it was…unsettling. Stardom was a poor fit for Patrick. (He could hear Pete’s voice saying _get used to it_ in his head.)

Patrick thanked the owl and tucked the note into his pocket to hide with the others, and tried to slink back to the farthest corner of the room. Maybe he could even go up to bed early or something.

Then another owl flew through the window and darted around his head with another note. This provoked laughter from the common room, as Patrick, caught off-guard, ducked like the owl was a particularly huge mosquito before realizing it was a second note and grabbing for it. _P.S. Totally going to convince you to have sex with me again, Lunchbox._

Patrick flushed harder and ignored all the catcalls as he tucked the note into his pocket. No, really, an early bedtime was looking better and better.

And then he noticed Winifred watching him, and for some reason he hesitated to look away and instead looked right back at her. He didn’t know what they had left to say, after what they’d said the night before, and after everything that had happened today, but hey, he wanted to make sure she knew he wasn’t backing down on…whatever.

Winifred looked away first, which Patrick supposed was a triumph.

He went back to his corner of the room and pretended to be dealing with arithmancy homework.

Then Winifred said softly, “Can I talk to you?”

Patrick looked at up her, only half-surprised she’d approached him. “Yes,” he said evenly after a moment, deciding to be gracious.

Winifred sat and looked at him uncertainly.

Patrick lifted his eyebrows, waiting for her to speak.

Eventually she said, “I’m sorry.”

“I’m not the one you should be apologizing to,” Patrick replied, and went back to his parchment.

“I know,” Winifred said, “but, like…I don’t talk much to Pete.”

“He’s your _brother_ ,” Patrick said flatly. He wasn’t best of friends with his brother or anything, but he _talked_ to him.

“I know, but…he doesn’t really like us.”

“You don’t really like him,” Patrick pointed out.

“That’s not true,” said Winifred.

Patrick gave up on his homework. He leaned back in his seat and folded his arms and regarded Winifred. “You just turned him in to McGonagall. Tell me why Pete should think that you like him.”

“We just _worry_ about him,” cried Winifred, anguished. “He always interprets that as dislike, when we’re just worried, like, about what to _do_ with him.”

“Yeah, he’s fine,” said Patrick, unimpressed. “All this worrying, when he’s smart and popular and talented. What the fuck are you talking about, what you’ll ‘do’ with him. He’ll do with himself, whatever he wants. That’s how it works.”

Winifred shook her head sadly. She really did look despairing about Pete. “It’s just so easy for a Slytherin to take the wrong path in life.”

“It’s so easy for _anyone_ to take the wrong path in life,” Patrick countered.

Winifred frowned. “Yeah, but—”

“No buts.” Patrick sat up, shaking his head. “What is fucking _wrong_ with all of you? You’re punishing him for something he didn’t even _do_. It was a _hat_. A _fucking hat_. You’re all freaked out, braced for some terrible thing he’s about to do, and all he is is a nice guy whose family fucked him up making him think he was going to turn into Jack the Ripper any day now.”

“Who?” said Winifred blankly.

“Fucking _whatever_ ,” Patrick bit out, fed up abruptly with wizards and their quirks. “What I’m saying is he’s fine and he’d be better if he thought his family loved him instead of wishing he’d disappear off the planet.” Patrick grabbed at his parchment in a huff. “I really need to get some homework done. Wentzes keep _interrupting_.”

Patrick stormed off to the bedroom and hoped that he hadn’t just made things worse for Pete.

***

Pete was having a good morning. He’d slept the night before, woken early enough to write besotted love poetry in his secret journal, and gone to breakfast with the rest of the house, and they were complaining about classes and talking eagerly about the upcoming band practice and Pete was at the center of a crowd of chattering and really, that was just how he liked it to be. He didn’t know why he’d been so emo about his life. He loved his life. What a perfect life. He caught Patrick’s eye across the Great Hall and sent him an exaggerated wink and he swore he could see the blush from across the room. Fucking perfect life.

Then Winifred came over to the Slytherin table.

“Oh, fuck,” Pete groaned. “What could you possibly want? Did I, like, jaywalk across the main staircase or something?”

“I don’t think you can do that,” said Winifred, sounding confused.

“If you can,” said Pete, “I’m sure I’ve done it, so go ahead and write me up for it.”

Winifred puckered her lips into that familiar frown of hers, her usual expression when conversing with him.

Pete waited to see what unpleasant criticism she was going to find about him next.

And instead she said, “I just wanted to apologize.”

Pete blinked. Next to him, he could sense Amabel and Cicero, blatantly eavesdropping, look up in surprise.

“You what?” said Pete.

Winifred sighed. “Can I sit?”

“Sure,” Pete said slowly, confused as to what was going on. And then his sister _sat at the Slytherin table_. “You’re sitting at the Slytherin table,” he pointed out, stunned.

“Aren’t you scared you’re going to catch, like, homicidal maniacism?” drawled Amabel sarcastically, leaning past Pete to say it.

“Slytherin cooties,” said Cicero, and waggled his fingers at Winifred.

Winifred huffed in that condescending way she had but Pete could see how tightly her hands were knotted together in her lap. She was obviously nervous. He looked at her hands clasping and unclasping and clasping back more tightly and said, “Hey, leave her alone.”

Winifred’s eyes snapped up to his, shock evident in them. “Thanks,” she said faintly.

His mouth twisted into a sarcastic smile. “I’m a Slytherin, not an asshole. I know you guys have a difficult time understanding that.”

“That’s what I’m sorry for,” Winifred said. “I mean, like, telling on you and Patrick like that. I’m sorry for that. That… Yeah. I’m sorry.”

The mention of Patrick made Pete glance over at him. Patrick, obviously staring at them, looked away immediately. Pete turned back to Winifred. “Did Patrick put you up to this?”

“No,” Winifred said. “I mean. Not entirely. He just said… He said you don’t think we like you.”

Pete lifted his eyebrows. “You don’t like me.”

“That’s not true.” Winifred, to Pete’s utter surprise, looked hurt. “Like, don’t get me wrong, you’re annoying. And, like, a total fucking show-off. What was that Quidditch move on Saturday?”

“The _game-winner_ ,” Pete pointed out.

Winifred rolled her eyes. “Okay, right, yes, I know, whatever, what I’m _saying_ is. You annoy me. But I don’t hate you. Like. You know that, right? I don’t _hate_ you.”

And Pete…didn’t know if he knew that or not. It had kind of been a long time since he’d even thought consciously about what Winifred felt about him, since he’d tried to put words to it. He considered what she was saying, swallowed thickly, and admitted, “I don’t hate you, either.”

Winifred looked vaguely relieved. “Okay. Well. That’s good.”

“Can you not…” Pete thought about his words, thought about what he wanted, and didn’t know. He had an entire notebook filled with what he wanted, but he had no idea how to articulate it. _I wish that I was as invisible as you make me feel_ , he thought. But he didn’t want to get into all of _that_.

“Look, truce, okay?” Winifred said, with matter-of-fact pragmatism. “If Slytherins are sitting at the Gryffindor table and vice versa and, like, being in bands together and all that with, like, McGonagall’s blessing, then, I don’t know, truce, right? Maybe…” Winifred after a moment tried a tremulous smile. “Maybe there’s hope for you, Pete Wentz.”

Pete could tell Winifred meant this as a joke, trying to make light of years of determined contradiction of that fact, but it was a poor joke, cutting too close to home. And Pete knew he had a choice. Pete could say _fuck you and all your self-righteous judgment you’ve been aiming at me for years now_. Pete could say _so what, you show up here with an apology after I’ve already got all these other people in my corner_.

Pete could also say _hey, you’re my sister and before all the fuckery started it was kind of in a way originally us against the world_.

Pete said, “Maybe.”

Which meant nothing at all but maybe everything. Because… _maybe_.

At that moment the mail arrived in the usual overpowering flurry of owls, and a Howler dropped by Pete’s place.

Pete looked at it in dread. “Oh, great.” But when he reached for it, it hopped up to settle more directly in front of Winifred.

Winifred stared at the red envelope.

So did Pete. “Hang on,” he said. “Is that for _you_?”

Winifred, with a trembling hand, reached out to grasp the envelope. It did not hop away from her but let her hold it.

“Huh,” said Pete.

“You’ve got to open it,” Cicero said. “If you don’t open it, it’s even worse.”

Winifred gave him a withering look. “Thanks for the Howler advice.”

“Anytime,” Cicero replied cheerfully.

Winifred looked so horrified, and Pete couldn’t imagine what she was about to get yelled at over, so he took pity on her. He was the family fuck-up, he’d gotten a million Howlers in his life. “Here we go,” Pete said, and took hold of one edge of it. “Let’s pull it open like a wishbone, get it over with.”

Winifred looked at him with bright eyes. “You don’t have to be nice to me,” she said.

“Yeah, I do,” Pete said. “Sometimes, at least. You’re my sister. I don’t know.” He shrugged.

Winifred tugged, and the Howler ripped in half.

Their mother’s voice swelled outward, speaking in the clipped, brusque tones she used on the Council of Magical Law. “Winifred Wentz, if your brother has decided to enter a school contest with his music, it is not for you to sabotage him, do you understand me?” Pete blinked in astonishment, even more so when the Howler turned toward him. “Pete, good luck.”

“What?” Pete actually said to the Howler in surprise.

“At least pretend to do some studying at some point, please,” the Howler concluded, which was more like it.


	37. Chapter 37

Patrick was trying really hard not to throw up, so focusing on Pete should have been a good distraction.

“I mean,” Pete was saying, “what is _even happening_. Did you do this? Winifred _apologized_ to me today. And then my mother sent _her_ a Howler. Winifred! Winifred has never gotten a Howler! I always get the Howlers! I am always the one who gets in trouble, Winifred never gets in trouble, she told Winifred not to sabotage my band! Do you think she likes my band? My mom? I mean, she hasn’t even heard our band, but I bet she’d like the band. She’d like _you_ , a lot. You’re all…Gryffindor and talented and everything. Did you hear the Howler, though? It was a thing of beauty. _Of beauty_.”

“Pete,” Patrick croaked, and closed his eyes, because he wanted to focus on Pete, he really did, but Pete was bouncing around and it was making Patrick feel even queasier. “I’m going to throw up.”

“No, you’re not,” Pete said, with the confidence of the person who wasn’t currently _about to throw up_.

Patrick gave him a dubious look and hoped he threw up all over Pete for that comment.

“Look,” said Pete, and finally stopped moving to sit down next to Patrick. “Talk to me, hmm? What’s up?”

“What’s _up_?” Patrick stared at him in disbelief. “All of our houses are out there waiting for us to perform. Can’t you _hear_ them?” The chatter was loud and enthusiastic and clearly expected something amazing to happen next.

“Yo,” Joe said, coming up to them. The Room of Requirement had given them a little backstage area from which Patrick couldn’t see the crowds gathering. Patrick was grateful for this, although he wished the Room had sound-proofed it, too. “We almost ready? The crowd’s getting restless.”

“Fuck,” said Patrick. He was _definitely_ going to throw up.

“Put your head between your knees,” Pete said, pushing it down for him, and then said to Joe, “So we’re going to need another couple of minutes. Can you have Andy do a drum solo or something?”

“Is he okay?” Patrick heard Joe ask.

“I’m going to die,” Patrick said.

“He’s fine,” said Pete.

“Cool,” Joe replied.

“Okay, Trick,” Pete said to him. “Listen to me.”

“I can’t,” said Patrick miserably. “I’m listening to the crowd.”

“Don’t,” said Pete, nudging him into sitting up again. “Don’t. Listen to _me_. Are you listening?”

Patrick passed a hand over his eyes. “Pete, I don’t know if I can—”

“You sing to _me_ out there. Okay. Just you and me together. That’s the singing you’re doing. It’s just you and me.”

“It’s obviously not,” said Patrick.

“You’re so good,” said Pete. “At everything. At _everything_. I wish you would believe me, but until you do, I’m going to believe it for you. You’re so good at singing, and you’re so good at music, and this is your _dream_ , right? Your music—the music you wrote—all those people are going to hear it, they’re going to hear what you have to say, that’s what you wanted, isn’t it? People hearing your music? Isn’t it? They’re going to hear you and they’re going to love you. The way I fell in love with you for it. And then fell in love with you again for everything else. I met you and I have a band, and I have someone to hear my words and make them sound beautiful and make _me_ feel beautiful and make me feel like me and, just, you got everyone sitting together in the Great Hall, Patrick, _you_ did that, so I’m telling you, you’re going to get up there and you’re going to sing your music to everyone and they are going to _love_ you because you’re Patrick and you’re… You’re Patrick.”

Patrick looked at Pete for a long moment, let his words sink into his skin. He thought of his music, out there in the world, when he’d started to believe it never would be. He thought of how much his life had changed since meeting Pete, as much as Pete’s life had changed since meeting him. And if they were both in uncharted waters, and if Pete could navigate them this well, then Patrick could, too, as long as he had Pete to hold the compass.

Patrick suddenly reached for Pete’s hands, clung to them tightly. “Pete,” he said desperately. “If I don’t throw up and this goes, like, if this goes okay out there, then I’m all in. With this band thing. I really am. That future you see. I want it, too.”

“Patrick, we don’t have to talk about this right now—” Pete began.

Patrick shook his head. “No. I mean it. I want that, too. I want it as much as you do. I do. It just…takes me longer to get there but I do it in the end.”

Pete studied him closely, and then seemed to believe him. “Okay,” he said, and smiled faintly. “Okay. I got you something.”

“What is it?” asked Patrick.

Pete directed his wand at the guitar pick he’d walked in with and tossed on the table next to Patrick, and it transfigured into a fedora.

“Showy,” Patrick remarked.

“The hat or the transfiguration?” asked Pete.

“Both,” said Patrick.

“Good.” Pete looked pleased. “You know me, I’m always going for showy. Here you go.” He put the hat on Patrick’s head, tipped it a bit to the side, then beamed at him. “You look good, Lunchbox.”

“Don’t call me that,” Patrick said. “Also, why am I wearing a hat? Do you want me to look extra-ridiculous out there?”

Pete reached out and tugged the brim on the hat down over Patrick’s eyes. “Hey, Trick, can you see me?” he asked.

Patrick got the point.

***

Their rehearsals started ending in near-riots and finally McGonagall banned them from rehearsing anymore.

Not that it mattered. Judging from school gossip, the band didn’t need any further rehearsal. The band had the contest locked up. People heard Patrick sing and they fell into raptures.

Yeah, Pete knew all about it.

The fact that there was still going to be a contest was almost mystifying to Pete. They should just give them the trophy and get on with it.

Pete said that, as they gathered backstage before their obvious imminent triumph in the contest. “We should just skip all of this and take home the trophy.”

Patrick, breathing into a paper bag, rolled his eyes at him. Patrick got less and less nervous the more he sang in front of crowds to a rapturous reception, but Pete wasn’t sure he’d ever get over a twitchy desire to pull a hat down over his eyes to make the audience disappear.

Joe, though, looked at him and said, “Agreed. This is pointless.”

“We haven’t been able to rehearse in a while,” Andy pointed out. “Think of this pointless contest performance as a useful rehearsal before the Yule Ball.”

“Andy, you’re so practical,” Pete grumbled.

“Yeah, how’d you end up in a band with Pete Wentz?” said Joe.

“Ha ha,” said Pete.

Patrick emerged from behind his paper bag, breathed deep, and sang a few notes, then said with convincing calm, closing his eyes as he did so, “I am ready.”

Pete suppressed his smile at him.

Joe said, “Fucking finally, Trick, you’re going to blow them all away the way you always do,” and leaped up to bound out toward the stage.

“Where’s he going?” Patrick asked, opening his eyes.

“To watch the other bands,” Pete answered.

Patrick looked ill. “Oh,” he said. “No, no. I don’t want to watch the competition. I want to just…pretend it’s not contest night.”

“Patrick,” Pete said fondly, because Patrick was _so silly_ sometimes.

Andy said, “I’ll go with Joe to cheer for them and show we’re good and supportive sports. You stay with Patrick and keep him calm.”

“Got it,” said Pete, nodding.

Andy turned away, then turned back. “By ‘keep him calm,’ I mean something that does not involve any penis leaving any pants.”

“So it’s okay if we come _inside_ our pants?” asked Pete.

“Pete,” said Patrick, wrinkling his nose.

“I’m just checking,” said Pete, as Andy, shaking his head at them, left. “I like to know the parameters before I ravish you.”

“Stop,” Patrick said, as Pete wriggled his way over to him. Patrick said sometimes Pete slobbered all over him like an enthusiastic puppy, and Pete went for it then, just to make Patrick smile, mouthing sloppily at his neck. “You can’t ravish me right now.”

“Patrick, we’ve got, like, a good forty-five minutes before we’re on, I can make you come _twice_ in that time and get us all cleaned up oh, hi, Dad, how are you?” Pete had not expected the movement he’d spotted out of the corner of his eye during that last statement to turn out to be his _father_.

His father just lifted his eyebrows and pretended not to have overheard Pete, which Pete appreciated _very much_. He shifted his gaze to Patrick and then he smiled, with a warmth Pete was a little surprised by. His dad wasn’t a mean guy—his job, after all, was to be welcoming—but there was a familiarity Pete wouldn’t have expected. His father confirmed the familiarity by saying, “Hello, Patrick, good to see you again. You know, McGonagall said you were the singer in the band and that we’d met but I confess I couldn’t place you until this moment. So many names cross my desk every year. How are things?”

Pete looked from his father to Patrick, who was staring in astonishment. And then Patrick said slowly, “Mr….Wentz. Mr. _Wentz_.” Patrick looked at Pete. “ _Oh_. I…totally forgot. I totally forgot.” Patrick looked back at Pete’s dad. “I mean. I didn’t _forget_ you. I… Hi, Mr. Wentz. Things are…good?” He offered the assessment uncertainly, like Pete’s dad might disagree.

Pete’s dad kept smiling, looking at Pete. “I helped Patrick get his supplies from Diagon Alley when he was admitted to Hogwarts.”

“Oh, right.” Understanding dawned on Pete. He should have made this connection earlier. “Muggle-born.”

“Not entirely,” Dad said. “Just Muggle-raised.”

“Not entirely?” Patrick echoed, sounding confused.

“Oh, dear.” Pete’s dad paused, considering. “I…assumed you knew. Oops.”

“Knew what?” Patrick asked.

“Your father was a Siren, of course. Nobody’s ever told you that? I’m sorry. I really assumed you knew, given that you sing.”

“I don’t really sing,” Patrick said faintly. He looked stunned by this revelation, paler than he had been a moment earlier, and Patrick was always paler than usual before a performance (and always pale, period, to begin with).

“You’re not the singer in Pete’s band?”

“I mean, yes, I am, but because Pete… I’m a singer because of Pete.” Patrick suddenly gained traction in his voice, set his chin firmly, his color a little higher. “I’m a singer because Pete thought I should be a singer, not because of some father I never even knew. So, like, yeah, that’s probably why no one ever told me. It’s irrelevant.” Patrick stood up, adjusting the fedora on his head and turning to Pete.

“Hang on,” Pete said in a vague panic, because Patrick seemed on the verge of leaving, and Pete could not be left alone with his father. “Where are you going? You’re upset. I should be with you to comfort you.”

“I’m fine,” Patrick said, and, actually, he did look fine. He dropped his voice for Pete’s ears alone. “My dad left a long time ago. I’m seriously fine. You should talk to your dad, though. He’s right there and he wants to talk to you, and that’s a pretty awesome thing, okay? And he’s…very like you, seriously, imagine just fucking slipping up on the central secret of my life, that’s such a you thing, you definitely inherited his tact.”

“Thanks?” said Pete uncertainly.

Patrick flickered a smile at him. “I’ll see you on stage,” he said, and then he winked, which was very uncharacteristic but gave Pete a little lift. Patrick should have been a bundle of nerves but instead he was trying to make Pete feel better.

Pete’s dad watched him go and then looked back at Pete, who wanted to sink into the floor. He was dressed for the performance, with heavy eyeliner and jagged ironed hair that he’d charmed with streaks of hot pink. He would never have been allowed anything like this at home and he waited for the inevitable criticism.

His dad said, “He was a sweet kid, Patrick Stump. Kind of all alone but very determined. I’m glad you made friends with him. And that makes sense. You’re both stubborn. Did you bond over how stubborn you are?”

“We bonded over music,” said Pete honestly, because he didn’t know what to do with any of this so he supposed honesty was a decent enough bet.

“So.” After a moment his dad sat on the couch next to Pete, the position Patrick had just vacated. Pete stared at him. “I got this owl from McGonagall. It said that I should probably check out Pete’s band. He was onto something. A band to unite the houses.”

Pete considered if he should downplay the band. But since his entire life plan was now this band, he rejected that idea. “Dad, Patrick’s so good. He’s _so good_. That Siren thing makes sense, wait until you hear him, he’s—”

“What do you do in the band?” his dad interrupted him calmly.

Pete hesitated. “I play bass.”

“Who writes the songs?”

Pete hesitated more. “Patrick writes the songs.”

His dad looked at him. “Who writes the songs, Pete?”

Fucking McGonagall totally gave him up, thought Pete. “Patrick writes the music. I…write the lyrics.”

“I didn’t know you liked to write,” his dad said.

“Did you really think you knew anything about me?” Pete asked before he could help it, and then bit his tongue.

“No,” his father replied evenly. “McGonagall has told me in no uncertain terms that maybe I don’t know the first thing about you.”

Pete wanted to crawl under a rock. Everything about this was humiliating. Maybe he could turn himself into a teacup or something and avoid the rest of this conversation. He said sulkily, “Did you show up here because you got in trouble with your boss? Because that’s okay, Dad. I don’t need you to—”

“I showed up here because my boss had a point. And my boss said…that maybe I should listen to what my kid had to say for a change.”

Pete fiddled with the guitar pick in his hand, watching his fingers turn it around and around, and said, “It’s fine. It doesn’t matter.”

“Pete,” his father said gently, and Pete couldn’t help but look up, because it was so stupid. He was almost done with Hogwarts, he was almost done with all of _this_ , it didn’t matter what his father thought. “I’m sorry,” his father said.

The shock was what did it. Pete was completely unprepared for that. He’d had no time to brace himself. _I’m sorry_ , his father said, and everything inside of Pete started crumpling.

“I know that doesn’t make up for years of not listening to you, but I’m going to start tonight. And every night in the future. We both are, your mother and I. We fucked all of this up with you. I’m sorry. We can’t redo it. But we can be better. We can try harder to be better. What do you think?”

_It doesn’t matter_ , Pete wanted to say. _Who cares?_ Pete wanted to say. Pete looked at his dad and couldn’t say anything at all. Pete opened and closed his mouth.

And then Pete’s dad _hugged_ him. Pulled him in and hugged him close, Pete found himself with his face pressed against his father’s chest, and Pete was almost entirely grown-up and on his own so there was really no explanation for how he clung like a tiny child.

“I’m sorry,” his father whispered. “I am. I’m so sorry.”

Pete choked out the only thing he could think of. “I really hope you like the band.”


	38. Chapter 38

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm about to disappear for the day, and I didn't want to leave everyone waiting anxiously for the last chapter and happily ever after, so here you go. :-) Thank you so much for reading along and loving these boys (and critiquing Hogwarts) along with me. I hope the ending is satisfying, because everyone was looking forward to the Yule Ball and I totally...didn't write the Yule Ball. Well. Sorry about there being no Yule Ball lol.

Patrick Stump stepped off  the Hogwarts Express at Platform 9¾ for the last time in his entire fucking life.  He stepped off it in worn-out jeans and a faded Coltrane t-shirt and a silk Slytherin handkerchief he was wearing as a cravat, because Pete had given it to him as a joke and Patrick had kept it close because nothing Pete gave him was ever a joke. 

Patrick was about to search the platform for Pete when a bundle of energy tackled him and he staggered backward, catching him up automatically. 

“Hi, hi, hi,” Pete said , kissing him a lot. “I was supposed to pick up this hot Gryffindor—but this guy—in this stupid Slytherin kerchief thing—is super-hot so—”

“It’s a cravat,” Patrick managed. 

“That doesn’t make it better, Patrick,” Pete said, and then stopped kissing him to press his face into his neck and breathe deeply. 

Patrick tipped his head against Pete’s and closed his eyes and felt him close against him, the breaths  entering him and  leaving him, the  body  heat pulsing from him . It had been a very long time of missing and wanting and  _ missing _ and  _ wanting _ . 

“Hi,” Pete mumbled again into Patrick’s skin. 

“Hi,” said Patrick, and turned his face into Pete’s hair and thought,  _ I missed you so fucking much _ . He didn’t say it because Pete knew, because Patrick had written a thousand embarrassing owls over the past year. 

Pete lifted his head to smile at him. “Congratulations on graduating and all your stupid N.E.W.T.s or whatever. I hear you have a very promising career ahead of you  cleaning up after hippogriffs or something, right?” 

“Fuck you,” Patrick said good-naturedly. 

“What’ll it be, Lunchbox?” Pete asked, smiling into a kiss on the corner of his mouth. “Hippogriffs or super-stardom with Pete Wentz?” 

“I’m seriously considering the hippogriffs at this point,” Patrick informed him. 

Pete laughed and stepped away to intertwine their hands. “Let’s find Joe and go out and meet Andy and go be a band now that you two fuckers are all grown-up and stuff.” 

“Joe and I were always more grown-up than you are ever going to be,” Patrick said, and pointed. “Joe’s over there.” 

Pete wolf-whistled loudly. “Joe  Trohman , hurry up and get your ass over here before we leave you behind.” 

“I was waiting for you to stop being gross,” Joe said drily, “but that’s apparently never going to happen.” 

“Patrick is wearing a cravat,” Pete said. “How do you not make out with a guy who’s wearing a cravat?” 

Joe gave Patrick a considering look, then shook his head. “Nope. No desire to make out with him.” 

“Good,” Pete said, clutching Patrick’s hand tightly. “I’m not sharing. Come on, this way.” Pete tugged Patrick off the platform, Joe following behind, and then out into the crowded Muggle street, and then Pete gestured to…a van. “Ta-da!” Pete said. 

Andy opened the back door of the van and said evenly, “Hello. Welcome to your home for this summer tour.” 

“Don’t sound so excited, Andy,” said Joe, and leaped into the backseat with him. 

Pete looked at Patrick, obviously tickled pink with himself. “Do you like it?” 

“Where’d you get it?” Patrick asked, astonished. It wasn’t like wizards knew much about Muggle automobiles. 

“Saved up. Saved up and bought it with  _ Muggle money _ . Andy came with me. You should have seen the transaction.” 

“It was quite something,” Andy agreed placidly. 

“Let me show you what it can do,” Pete said excitedly. 

“Roughly twenty miles an hour is what it can do,” said Andy. “Highways are interesting.” 

Patrick watched Pete head around the  front of the van, an d it suddenly dawned on Patrick. “Hang on. You’re not driving, are you?” 

Pete looked at him. “What? I’ve gotten pretty good at it.” 

“When?” Patrick asked. “When have you gotten good at Muggle driving?” 

“On the way here,” Pete said. “Andy, wasn’t I pretty good on the way here ? ” 

“You charmed the van to fly over every single traffic circle,” said Andy. 

“Well, I mean, dude, that’s how you’re  _ supposed _ to navigate traffic circles,” said Pete. 

“Okay, I’m going to drive,” Patrick announced. 

“But it’s my van!” Pete protested. “I bought it!” 

“It’s my  _ life _ ,” Patrick countered. “And I’m the one who has a driver’s license between the two of us. Joe and Andy, who should drive the van?” 

“Patrick,” they answered in unison. 

“Oh, fuck,” Pete complained, “everyone is going to gang up on me  _ all summer _ .” 

Patr ick passed him to settle behind the steering wheel. “You’ve had people going easy on you for a year, Wentz,” he remarked. “Vacation’s over.  I will stand firm against your terrible ideas.” 

“Until he gets his mouth around your dick,” muttered Joe. 

Pete laughed delightedly from the passenger seat. 

Patrick felt himself blush and ignored it, because, like, whatever, it would be stupid to pretend he wasn’t the happiest he’d been ever before in his life, navigating a rickety van out intro traffic with his band in it. With his boyfriend in it. With his  _ Pete _ in it. 

Joe said, “It is fucking hot in here, isn’t it?” 

“Oh, yeah,” Pete said, “the heat’s stuck permanently on.” He paused. “And the windows don’t open.” 

There was a moment of silence. 

Patrick said, “And this is our home all  _ summer _ .” 

“Yup,” Pete answered cheerfully. “It’s going to be awesome. I’ll figure out how to charm it into working, it’s just mechanical, I just need some time. ” 

“I need more weed,” Joe said . “I do not have nearly enough weed to survive this.” 

Pete ignored him to start babbling about the tour schedule. Patrick knew all of this—Pete had kept him abreast of all details—but Pete’s enthusiasm was infectious, and Patrick stopped worrying about all the crowds, and started seeing the world painted in Pete colors. He’d forgotten Pete could do that. 

Eventually even Pete ran out of steam and fell silent. Patrick kept driving, watching the GPS on his phone. Andy and Joe had fallen asleep in the backseat . Patrick drove through the long twilight of  summer. Getting passed by every other car on the highway. But whatever. 

Pete said suddenly, “Hey, Trick, just so you know, I slept with, like, eighteen people over the past year  while you were at school and I was all footloose and fancy-free out in the world.” 

And Patrick thought how he was so sure of Pete, Pete and his warm fondness, his devoted owls, his streams of words, that he merely rejoined, “Oh, good, because I totally fucked my way through Hogwarts , so we’re even.” 

Pete snuggled up close to him, leaning on his shoulder. 

“It’s a million degrees in this van,” Patrick said, “ and also I’m driving.” 

“Uh-huh,” said Pete, and stayed plastered up against him. 

Eventually he fell asleep, too, sweaty and drooling on Patrick’s shoulder,  and Patrick thought… Patrick thought,  _ This _ _ is what magic is _ , and drove on through the night. 

_ f _ _ in. _


End file.
